The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byNot found
- What was triedhttps://co.franklin.ne.us/ (redirects to https://franklincountyne.gov/, blocked — PROVENANCE_REQUIRED on repeated attempts); https://franklincountyne.gov/ (blocked); https://franklincountyne.gov/sheriff-office/ (blocked); https://ballotpedia.org/Franklin_County,_Nebraska (blocked). Franklin County's own website could not be reached in this research pass despite repeated attempts and one WebSearch call that returned no results for the domain.
Source: · 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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Not found
- Runs the jailBy default statute the elected sheriff has charge of the county jail under Neb. Rev. Stat. 47-105 and 23-1703, but the current officeholder could not be confirmed from a source opened in this pass
- How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-520)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. 32-520 · 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). The county court judge sets bail at first appearance. No named district or county court judge for this county was located from a source opened in this pass.
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 →
Notes on the record
- 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 state agency publishes it, and this county's own site does not publish an inspection report either.
- Franklin County's own website (co.franklin.ne.us, redirecting to franklincountyne.gov) could not be fetched in this research pass — repeated attempts returned PROVENANCE_REQUIRED and the group's WebSearch budget was exhausted before a working URL for this domain could be found. Every check below is 'no' for lack of an openable county source, not because the county fails to publish; this is a research-access gap, recorded honestly rather than filled with a guess.
- Board type (Commissioners vs. Supervisors) could not be confirmed from the county's own site, which was unreachable in this pass; the Nebraska Association of County Officials directory lists a board meeting schedule of '1st Tuesday' but does not state the board's form. Not recorded here rather than guessed.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Franklin 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