The Detention Center
None — Steele County has no county jail
- Operated byNone
- Where Steele County's prisoners goBarnes County Correctional Center, Valley City — per plains_states.json state-layer research citing that facility's own DOCR inspection report (not independently reopened this session)
- What was triedsteelecountynd.gov/commission and co.steele.nd.us/sheriff were disallowed by robots.txt; only steelecountynd.gov/sheriff was readable and contained no jail information
Source: Barnes County Correctional Center — DOCR inspection report (cited via plains_states.json state-layer research) · checked 2026-08-25
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 applicable — no county jail
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Wayne A. Beckman
- Runs the jailNo county jail — Steele County has no operating adult facility of its own
- ElectedNDCC 11-10-02 requires each county to have an elected sheriff, four-year term; the county's own site states Sheriff Beckman has served since 1994
- Tenure39 years in law enforcement per the office's own site; began as a part-time dispatcher/corrections officer, completed the Law Enforcement Academy in 1987
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Steele County, ND — Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
North Dakota district judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms (ND Constitution Art. VI, Sec. 1). Midterm vacancies are filled by the Governor from a list submitted by a judicial nominating committee, unless the Governor instead calls a special election (ND Constitution Art. VI, Sec. 13). District judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. Under ND Supreme Court Administrative Rule 20, a presiding judge may appoint a magistrate with delegated authority to hold initial appearances and set bail under NDCC ch. 29-08.
District Court — East Central Judicial District
- Not listed on the page opened
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-25
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
- Steele County has no county jail; DOCR facility inspection reports (via plains_states.json) list it as a sending county to the Barnes County Correctional Center in Valley City.
- steelecountynd.gov/commission was disallowed by robots.txt this session; steelecountynd.gov/sheriff was readable and named the sheriff but published no roster, budget, PREA, inspection, contract, bond, or fee information.
- Board of County Commissioners (NDCC 11-11-01). steelecountynd.gov/commission was disallowed by robots.txt this session, so commissioner names, a board page, and a minutes page could not be confirmed from a source opened here.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Steele 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 2026-08-25 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered