Sheridan County, Montana — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Sheridan County Detention Facility (Temporary Hold Facility only)

Operated bySheridan County Sheriff's Office
Status'The Sheridan county Detention Facility has been designated a Temporary Hold Facility. For this reason, there is no posted jail roster. All long-term holds are transported to other facilities.' (quoted from the Sheriff's own page)
Where long-term holds goNot named on the county's site
Address / beds / year built / cost / fundingNot found

Source: Sheridan County MT — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24

Transparency rating

1/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Sheridan County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-24. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

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

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Lonnie Johnson

Runs the jailSheridan County Detention Facility is designated a Temporary Hold Facility only
Long-term holdsTransported to other facilities, per the Sheriff's own site bio

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Sheridan County MT — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24

The Judges

Montana district court judges are elected officials of the state judicial district; Justices of the Peace are also elected and typically set bail at first appearance. Neither is a county administrative employee.

District Court Judge

Not found

Justice Court

Not found

Still needed

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 →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Sheridan County explicitly states on its own site that its detention facility is a Temporary Hold Facility with no posted jail roster and that long-term holds are transported elsewhere — this is recorded as the finding rather than treated as a missing roster.
Montana has no confirmed statutory adult jail inspection agency; state_inspection is recorded as empty for this reason, per research brief.
Sheridan County is governed by a Board of County Commissioners; the county site publishes a group contact only (commissioners page has no individually named members visible without site interactivity this research could not reproduce).

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Sheridan 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