The Detention Center
Douglas County Correctional Center
- Operated byDouglas County Department of Corrections
- Who runs itMichael Myers, MS, LMHP, CJM — Director, Douglas County Department of Corrections
- Answers tothe Douglas County Board of Corrections
- Why this is differentThe elected county sheriff does not run this jail.
- Address710 S. 17th St, Omaha, NE
- OpenedJuly 1979
- Current rated capacity1,453 beds (Wikipedia, citing county history); a Nebraska Sheriffs' Association page separately gives approximately 1,449 beds
- 1983 expansionSingle cells converted to double bunking, raising capacity to 363 beds
- 1989 expansionAnnex added with eight dormitory-style housing units (354 beds) plus two isolation cells, raising capacity to 719 beds
- 2005 expansionNine housing units of 62 beds each plus a 61-bed medical unit, raising capacity to the current 1,453 beds
- LeadershipDirector Michael Myers, MS, LMHP, CJM; Deputy Director Amber M. Redmond, CJM (Nebraska Sheriffs' Association)
- FY2025-26 Corrections budget$66.5 million allocated for the department (roughly two-thirds personnel costs), against a total county budget of $636.5 million, per a local news report on Director Myers's presentation to the County Commissioners; this is a news report, not a county-published page, so it does not satisfy the 'budget' transparency check below
- What was triedhttps://www.douglascounty-ne.gov/ and its /corrections/ page, plus multiple wp-content/uploads board-of-corrections and board-of-commissioners PDF agendas found via search (all returned 403 or PROVENANCE_REQUIRED and could not be opened); https://corrections.dccorr.com/, /administration, /contact-us, /related-links (all 403 blocked); https://sheriff.douglascounty-ne.gov/ and /faq/ (403 blocked); https://commissioners.douglascounty-ne.gov/ (repeatedly blocked, could not be opened). https://newsletter.douglascounty-ne.gov/ — a real county subdomain — WAS successfully opened across three monthly issues (June 2026, August 2026, November 2025); it names 'Douglas County Department of Corrections' staff by title repeatedly but contains no facility name, capacity, budget, PREA, inspection, contract, bond, or fee information.
Source: Wikipedia — Douglas County Correctional Center · checked 2026-08-25
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 built1979 (original facility); most recent major expansion completed 2005
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds1,453
Since then
- 1983: single cells converted to double bunking (363 beds)
- April 1989: annex adds eight dormitory-style housing units plus two isolation cells (719 beds total)
- June 2005: nine housing units of 62 beds each plus a 61-bed medical unit (1,453 beds total, current)
The Sheriff
Sheriff Thomas J. Wheeler
- Runs the jailNo — the county jail is run by the Douglas County Department of Corrections, not the Sheriff's Office, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 23-2801 to 23-2806 (mandatory county board of corrections at 150,000+ population). Verified: the county's own newsletter (newsletter.douglascounty-ne.gov) treats 'Corrections' and 'Sheriff' as two separate departments with separate staff rosters, and the Nebraska Crime Commission's jail-data reporting list shows Douglas County reporting as a 'CORRECTIONS' department rather than a sheriff's office.
- How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-520)
- Office / accreditationSheriff's Office substation at 3601 North 156th Street, Omaha, NE 68116; approximately 213 staff (134 sworn, 97 civilian); CALEA-accredited since 2005
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Nebraska Sheriffs' Association — Douglas County Sheriff and County Jail Information · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
Nebraska judges are merit-selected and are state, not county, officials: the Governor appoints from a judicial nominating commission list, and appointees then face retention elections (Neb. Const. Art. V §21). Neb. Rev. Stat. 24-503 allocates 12 county judges to Douglas County (County Judge District 4), more than any other district. The county court judge sets bail at first appearance; Douglas County is also one of the counties (with Lancaster and Sarpy) with a separate juvenile court. No named judges were located from a source opened in this pass.
County Court — District 4
- 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 2026-08-25
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
- Confirmed structural fact, verified this pass against the county's own newsletter (which lists Corrections and Sheriff as separate departments with separate staff): Douglas County runs its jail through a county CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT rather than the Sheriff's Office, under Neb. Rev. Stat. 23-2801 to 23-2806. The department's director, Michael Myers, is named and sourced above (jail_administrator) — a real improvement over 'Not found,' though not from the county's own domain, because douglascounty-ne.gov and corrections.dccorr.com blocked every page attempted (403 or unauthorized fetch) throughout this pass.
- Every transparency check is marked no not because Douglas County necessarily withholds this information, but because its two working web domains for corrections/sheriff/commissioners content — douglascounty-ne.gov (including the commissioners and sheriff subdomains) and corrections.dccorr.com — returned 403 errors or blocked automated fetching on every substantive page attempted. Only the newsletter.douglascounty-ne.gov subdomain was reachable, and it carries HR announcements only, not facility, budget, PREA, inspection, contract, bond, or fee information.
- State-layer finding applies: Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,131 requires the Jail Standards Board's inspection report to go to the facility's governing body, not to the public; no publication by Douglas County was found (nor could its core site be opened to check).
- Board of seven County Commissioners, elected by district to staggered four-year terms (Ballotpedia — Government of Douglas County, Nebraska). Individual current commissioners' names were not confirmed because every page attempted on douglascounty-ne.gov and its commissioners subdomain returned a 403 error or could not be granted fetch permission in this pass, including direct board-agenda PDFs surfaced by search. The county's own accessible newsletter subdomain does not list commissioners by name either.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Douglas 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