The Detention Center
Strafford County House of Corrections (Strafford County Department of Corrections)
- Operated byStrafford County Department of Corrections
- Who runs itChristopher Brackett — Superintendent, Strafford County Department of Corrections, appointed by the Board of County Commissioners (RSA 30-B:3)
- Jail address266 County Farm Road, Dover, NH 03820
- Designed capacity450 beds (federal PREA audit report posted by the county, on-site 30 Sept - 2 Oct 2025)
- Population at audit337 in custody; 353 average daily population over the preceding 12 months
- Age range held18-80; both men and women
- When the current jail openedAbout 2005 — the county's 2016 annual report calls 2016 'our 12th year of operating the new jail'
- Boarding other agenciesThe 2016 annual report states contracts to house inmates for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, the New Hampshire State Prison for Women, and Rockingham County
- Boarding moneyDirect payments from inmate boarders were $7,415,223.50 in 2016; the 2026 approved budget books $12,226,875 of Jail Income
- ICE inquiriesThe department's own page directs all questions about ICE housing, numbers in custody and contracts to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Burlington, Massachusetts
- Original cost / fundingNot found — checked the jail pages, the annual report archive back to 2002, the capital improvement plan page and the approved budget
Source: Strafford County Department of Corrections · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗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 builtAbout 2005 — not stated directly; the 2016 annual report calls 2016 the 12th year of operating the new jail
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds450 (designed facility capacity, 2026 PREA audit final report)
Since then
- Transitional Housing Program opened 16 November 2009 with 12 beds, later expanded to 20 plus an 8-bed female area
The Sheriff
Sheriff Kathryn L. Mone
- Runs the jailNo — the Superintendent of the Strafford County Department of Corrections does
- RoleElected county officer; civil process, transports, court security and county dispatch
- Office259 County Farm Road, Suite 105, Dover, NH 03820
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Strafford County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Judges in New Hampshire are state judicial officers, not county officials. They are nominated by the Governor and appointed with the consent of the Executive Council, and are never elected. New Hampshire has a unified state trial court: the Superior Court and the Circuit Court (district, family and probate divisions) are state courts. The county pays for and maintains courthouse space but does not choose the judges. The Judicial Branch publishes a clerk for each court location and does not publish a sitting-judge roster per county, so no presiding judge is named here. Appointment method source: https://www.courts.nh.gov/our-courts/superior-court
NH Circuit Court — 7th Circuit, District Division — Dover (25 St. Thomas Street, Dover)
- Not published per county — the Judicial Branch lists Clerk Cheryll Andrews and no judge
NH Circuit Court — 7th Circuit, District Division — Rochester (76 North Main Street, Rochester)
- Not published per county — Clerk Cheryll Andrews listed, no judge
Strafford Superior Court (William A. Grimes Justice & Administration Building, 259 County Farm Road, Suite 301, Dover)
- Not published — the Judicial Branch page lists Clerk Kimberly T. Myers and no 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 2026-08-23
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
- PREA: Strafford is the best-documented of the five. The county posts PREA audit final reports for 2016 and for the audit completed 15 May 2026 (auditor Jack Fitzgerald, on-site 30 September - 2 October 2025), PREA annual reports for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, a 2023-2025 comparison and its PREA policy, all at https://straffordcounty.gov/prison-rape-elimination-act
- Budget: the 2026 Approved Budget PDF lists 01.6100.000 Department of Corrections at $18,678,277, 01.6102.000 Community Corrections at $1,090,420, Jail Industries Program at $447,992, and on the revenue side 01.6040.000 Jail Income at $12,226,875.
- Contracts: marked no because the check asks for contracts with rates. The county names the agencies it boards for (ICE, U.S. Marshals Service, NH State Prison for Women, Rockingham County) in its 2016 annual report and books the resulting revenue in the budget, but publishes no contract document and no per-diem rate, and refers all ICE contract questions to ICE.
- Annual reports: the Department of Corrections annual report archive runs from 2002 to 2016 at https://straffordcounty.gov/jail-annual-report and stops there; nothing more recent is posted.
- Roster: straffordcountyjailnh.org, which appears in search results as a Strafford County jail roster, is not reachable without JavaScript and is not linked from the county site; no roster is published by the county itself.
- Fees and bail: the inmate telephone page names Connect Network and the FAQ says 'a fee will be charged for the cash kiosk or an on line deposit' without publishing any rate. There is a Bail/Release Lobby with a cash kiosk but no published guidance on how to post bail.
- Inspections: the 2016 annual report says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/ICE, the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service conduct yearly inspections as part of the boarding contract, but no inspection report is published.
- New Hampshire has no state agency that inspects county jails and publishes the results the way the Maine Department of Corrections does. The only independent inspection of a New Hampshire county jail that is routinely published is the federal PREA audit, when the county chooses to post it.
- Three county commissioners elected under RSA 28: George Maglaras (Chairman), Leslie Feliciano (Vice Chair) and Sean Leavitt (Clerk). The commissioners propose the budget; the Strafford County Delegation — the county's state representatives — votes it under RSA 24 through its Executive Committee. The 2026 approved budget sets the Department of Corrections at $18,678,277 and Community Corrections at $1,090,420.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Strafford 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.
In New Hampshire your town or city clerk runs the checklist and the polling place. Links from vote.gov and USA.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered