The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byHolt County Sheriff's Office
- What was triedholtcounty.nebraska.gov's sheriff page and contact page were opened; the sheriff page describes the sheriff as overseeing "the jail and its prisoners" in generic statutory language but does not name a distinct jail facility, address, or capacity
- State reporting dataBoth "HOLTCOJAIL" and "HOLTCOSOONEILL" appear as separately reporting agencies with active submission history in the Nebraska Crime Commission's jail record status table — a state source, not the county's own site, indicating Holt County does operate a jail distinct from the sheriff's office proper, even though the county site does not name it
Source: Holt County Sheriff page (jail not separately named) · 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 Ben Matchett
- Runs the jailPer Neb. Rev. Stat. 47-105 and 23-1703, "except in counties where a separate board of corrections exists with jail duties" — the county's own sheriff page uses this exact statutory caveat; no Holt County board of corrections was identified
- Office410 E Benton, Suite #1, O'Neill, NE 68763
- Contact(402) 336-2850, fax (402) 336-2885
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Holt County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
Nebraska uses merit selection with retention elections for every trial court judge, including the county court judge who sets bail at first appearance. The Governor appoints from a list submitted by a judicial nominating commission (Neb. Const. Art. V, sec. 21). No sitting judge's name for Holt County was found on a source opened 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 →
Notes on the record
- Holt County is a seven-member Board of Supervisors county, confirmed directly from the county's own site rather than the weaker 2008 Blue Book source.
- No jail-specific page, roster, budget, capacity, PREA, inspection, contract, bond-information, or fee content was found on holtcounty.nebraska.gov during this session.
- Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,131 requires Nebraska Crime Commission personnel to inspect a covered facility and deliver a written report within 30 days to the facility's governing body, not to the public. No state agency publishes these reports, and no Holt County page publishing one was found.
- Holt County's own site labels its governing body the "Board of Supervisors" (page titled "Board of Supervisors" under holtcounty.nebraska.gov/about). Seven members are listed with no district or officer titles given: Doug Frahm (Amelia), William Tielke (Atkinson), Duane Neiman (Atkinson), Donald Linquist Jr. (Page), Josh Treptow (O'Neill), Dustin Breiner (O'Neill), and Darrin Paxton (Stuart). Holt County matches the state's list of 27 seven-member supervisor counties, and the county's own site confirms this directly rather than relying on the 2008 Blue Book source.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Holt 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