The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byBoone County Sheriff's Office
- Jail confirmed but not namedThe Sheriff's Office page states verbatim that they 'manage the county jail' and lists six Jailer/Dispatcher staff positions, confirming an operating jail, but no separate facility name, address, capacity, or roster is published
- State reportingListed as an active reporting agency ('BOONECOSOALBION') in the Nebraska Crime Commission's jail-data reporting-status table, consistent with an operating jail
- What was triedhttps://boonecountyne.gov/sheriff-office/ (no distinct jail name/address found); https://boonecountyne.gov/ (no dedicated jail/detention navigation link)
Source: Boone County, NE — Sheriff's Office (boonecountyne.gov) · checked 2026-08-25
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Denny Johnson
- Runs the jailYes — the county's own sheriff page describes the office as managing the county jail, and the elected sheriff has statutory charge of the jail under Neb. Rev. Stat. 47-105 and 23-1703
- How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-520)
- StaffChief Deputy John Buck; three Deputy Sheriffs; Office Supervisor Mary Hemmingsen; six Jailer/Dispatcher positions listed
- Office address217 S 5th Street, Albion, NE 68620
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Boone County, NE — Sheriff's Office (boonecountyne.gov) · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
Nebraska judges are merit-selected, not county officials: the Governor appoints from a judicial nominating commission's list, and the judge then faces an uncontested retention vote at the next general election after three years, and every six years thereafter (Neb. Const. Art. V, sec. 21). Boone County's own County Court page names only its Clerk of Courts (Lisa Langan) and Assistant Clerk (Kathleen Yrkoski), not the presiding judge; the presiding County Court judge, this county's judicial district, and the District Court judge were not established from sources reviewed this session.
District Court
- Not found
County Court
- 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 2026-08-25
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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Budget: Boone County publishes its 2025 Adopted Budget (passed September 15, 2025) as downloadable PDFs on its own domain at https://boonecountyne.gov/budgets/. It also publishes a FYE 2024 audit at https://boonecountyne.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2025/07/Audit.pdf, which was not found to mention jail/corrections costs specifically.
- State-layer finding applies: Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,131 requires the Nebraska Jail Standards Board (via Crime Commission staff) to inspect this jail and deliver a written report to the county's governing body within 30 days, but no state agency publishes the report and none was found published on the county's own site.
- Boone County's own site names a three-member Board of Commissioners by district: Jon Lindgren (Dist. 2, Chairman), Brian Yosten (Dist. 1, Vice Chairman), Matt Niewohner (Dist. 3). This is consistent with the 2008 Nebraska Blue Book, which does not list Boone among the 27 supervisor counties.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Boone 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