The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byPierce County Sheriff's Office
- Facility name on county siteNot named — the Sheriff's Office page states only that the office 'manage[s] the county jail'
- State reporting nameListed in the Nebraska Crime Commission's jail-data reporting table as 'PIERCECOSOPIERCE' — a state list, not a county-published source, so not used to satisfy the 'named' check
- What was triedhttps://piercecountyne.gov/sheriff-office/ (no facility name, address, capacity or budget given); https://piercecountyne.gov/jail/ (not reachable)
Source: Pierce County Sheriff's Office · 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 Rick Eberhardt
- Office address111 W. Court St., Room 7, Pierce, NE 68767
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office page states the office 'manage[s] the county jail'
- How the office is filledElected on a partisan ballot, 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: Pierce County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
Nebraska's trial courts (District Court and County Court) are state judicial officers, not county officials. All Nebraska judges are merit-selected: the Governor appoints from a judicial nominating commission list, then face retention elections (Neb. Const. Art. V, section 21). No presiding County Court judge's name for Pierce County was found — the page names only the Clerk Magistrate. This is Pierce County, Nebraska, confirmed against the North Dakota county of the same name and not to be confused with it.
Pierce County Court — Clerk Magistrate
- Kristina Sehi (Clerk Magistrate; not a judge)
- 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
- Public records requests must be answered within 4 business days (Neb. Rev. Stat. 84-712).
- Referred to as the 'County Board' on the county's own site (three members): John Steinkraus (Plainview), Brad Albers (Randolph), Carl Martinson (Pierce). The page does not use the words 'Commissioners' or 'Supervisors.' Pierce does not appear on the 2008 Nebraska Blue Book's 27-county Board of Supervisors list, and a 3-member board is consistent with a commissioner-county structure, but the exact statutory designation was not confirmed from a page opened on the county's own site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Pierce 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