The Detention Center
Onondaga County Justice Center (Patrick J. Corbett Justice Center) and Jamesville Correctional Facility
- Operated byOnondaga County Sheriff's Office
- Justice Center address555 South State Street, Syracuse, NY 13202
- Justice Center opened3 April 1995
- Justice Center typeDirect-supervision maximum-security facility holding arrested, pre-trial and federal, state and county people awaiting transfer
- Jamesville address6660 E Seneca Turnpike, Jamesville, NY 13078
- Jamesville capacity538
- Jamesville staffAbout 167 employees
- Jamesville typeDirect supervision facility
- Kiosk fee$4.00 user fee per deposit at the Justice Center lobby kiosk
Source: Onondaga County Sheriff's Office — Justice Center · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
7/10Open- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtJustice Center opened 3 April 1995; Jamesville not found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsJamesville 538; Justice Center not found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Shelley Tobias
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office runs both county facilities: the Justice Center through its Custody Department and the Jamesville Correctional Facility through its Correction Department.
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff (New York County Law art. 17)
- Described asThe 62nd Sheriff of Onondaga County
- Office websiteThe supplied URL sheriff.ongov.net redirects to sheriff.onondaga.gov
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Onondaga County Sheriff's Office · 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.
Onondaga 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.
- NoteOnondaga County also has an elected County Executive, J. Ryan McMahon, II. The Legislature has 17 members serving two-year terms; its chairwoman is Nicole Watts.
- The boardOnondaga County Legislature →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Both county facilities are recorded, as the brief requires: the Justice Center in Syracuse and the Jamesville Correctional Facility.
- Separate public lookups are published for each facility, and both sit on the sheriff's own domain.
- A capacity of 538 is published for Jamesville; no rated capacity was published for the Justice Center.
- PREA: the sheriff publishes a zero-tolerance policy and a full list of ways a person in custody can report, including the PREA Coordinator and an after-hours route. The page refers to audit reports but links none.
- Bail: the money and property page gives bail cashier window hours, accepted payment methods, the identification needed and an online bail route.
- Fees: the same page publishes a $4.00 user fee per deposit at the lobby kiosk. Sheriff civil service and mileage fee schedules are published separately.
- The county publishes adopted budget books and capital plans from 2013 to 2026 plus the 2027 executive budget.
- No death-in-custody record, county copy of an inspection report, or contract to hold other agencies' prisoners was found, although the Justice Center page says it holds federal and state people awaiting transfer.
- 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 Onondaga 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