The Detention Center
Cayuga County Jail
- Operated byCayuga County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address7445 County House Road, Auburn, NY 13021 (NYS Commission of Correction facility list)
- Rated capacityDirect-supervision, maximum-security 214 bed facility (the Sheriff's Divisions page says 212)
- BailMay be posted in person in cash or by card, or online through GovPayNet, which charges a non-refundable service fee
- PREAA PREA Coordinator telephone line is published
Source: Cayuga County Sheriff — Custody · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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
- ✗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
- Beds214
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Brian Schenck
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office Custody division operates the Cayuga County Jail
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff
- UndersheriffStuart Peenstra
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Cayuga County Sheriff — Contact Us · checked 2026-09-20
The Judges
New York's county and supreme court justices are state judicial officers, not county officials; city, town and village justices also set bail for people arrested in their areas.
Cayuga County Circuit 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 2026-09-20
The County Legislature or Board of Supervisors
They pay for the jail. In most counties the sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe jail budget, the building itself, and the agreements that rent its beds to other agencies. Several counties also have an elected County Executive. In Westchester a county Department of Correction runs the jail rather than the sheriff.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations, and state oversight. The sheriff is separately elected and keeps the jail in most counties (NY Correction Law art. 20), while the State Commission of Correction sets the standards, inspects the facility and investigates every death in custody. The five New York City counties have no county sheriff jail at all — the city Department of Correction runs them.
- NoteNo legislature agendas page was opened on the county domain.
- The boardCayuga County Legislature
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- The supplied cayugacounty.us URL is refused by our reader; the county's live domain is cayugacounty.gov and that is where the checks were judged. Several pages on that domain were also refused, so this record is thinner than the county's site probably warrants.
- The Custody page names the jail and gives a 214-bed capacity; the Sheriff's Divisions page gives 212, and both figures are recorded rather than choosing between them.
- The jail and inmate FAQs give bail guidance and publish a Prison Rape Elimination Act Coordinator line.
- The FAQs say a kiosk deposit carries a small fee and that card bail carries a non-refundable service fee, but publish no rates, so fees stays no.
- The county's only jail expense material found is an archival series of County Jail Expense Books for 1917 to 1939; no current budget document showing a jail or sheriff line was opened, so budget is recorded no.
- No county-hosted in-custody roster, inspection report, death-in-custody record or housing contract was found.
- State inspection/oversight: New York's State Commission of Correction oversees every local correctional facility in the state, sets the minimum standards they must meet, inspects them, and investigates every death in custody.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Cayuga 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 legislators who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered