The Detention Center
Madison County Detention Center
- Operated byMadison County Sheriff's Department
- Address100 Wallace Street, PO Box 276, Virginia City, MT 59755, per third-party jail directory
- CapacityReported as able to house 131 detainees, per third-party jail directory — not confirmed on the county's own site
- What was triedmadisoncountymt.gov (including the Sheriff's Office Divisions page) failed to load on every attempt during this research session (robots.txt timeouts); no page on the county's own site could be reached to confirm jail details, budget, roster, PREA, inspections, contracts, bond info, or fees
Source: Madison County Detention Center (third-party directory; official county site unreachable) · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found on an official source (third-party directory reports 131, unconfirmed)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Phil Fortner
- Runs the jailYes, per third-party sources — Madison County Detention Center, operated by the Sheriff's Department
- AddressPO Box 276 / 100 W Wallace St, Virginia City, MT 59755
- How the office is filledElected
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Sheriff name and address per usacops.com (madisoncountymt.gov was unreachable throughout this research session — repeated robots.txt timeouts) · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Montana district court judges and justices of the peace are elected. The Justice of the Peace usually sets bail at first appearance. Both are state/county judicial officers, not county administrative officials.
5th Judicial District Court Judge (district also covers Beaverhead and Jefferson Counties)
- Not found — not independently confirmed for Madison County; Jefferson County's own site (jeffersoncounty-mt.gov/district-court/) names Luke Berger as the 5th Judicial District judge, and the same district is understood to cover Madison County, but this could not be verified on a Madison County source
Madison County Justice Court — Justice of the Peace
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
Notes on the record
- madisoncountymt.gov could not be reached at any point during this research session — every fetch attempt failed at the robots.txt stage with a connection timeout. All checks are therefore recorded 'no' because the brief requires judging only what the county itself publishes on its own site, which could not be verified.
- Montana has no confirmed statutory adult jail inspection agency; state_inspection recorded empty per the research brief.
- Not found — madisoncountymt.gov was unreachable throughout this research session, so Board of County Commissioners member names could not be confirmed.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Madison County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered