Otsego County, New York — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Otsego County Jail

Operated byOtsego County Sheriff's Office
Jail address172 County Highway 33 West, Cooperstown, NY 13326 (NYS Commission of Correction list)
Address on the county's corrections page197 Main Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326
Beds96
Built1991, occupied 1992
Commissary limitMaximum food and beverage purchase is $50.00

Source: Otsego County Sheriff - Corrections · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

5/10Partial

✓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 — not published
✓Independent inspection
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✓How to post bond
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Otsego County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-20. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year built1991 (occupied 1992)
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds96

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr.

Runs the jailYes - the Otsego County Jail is run by the Sheriff's Office
How the office is filledElected county sheriff (NY County Law art. 17)

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Otsego 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.

Otsego County Circuit Court

Not found

Still needed

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.
NoteOtsego County is governed by a Board of Representatives at 197 Main Street, Cooperstown.
The boardOtsego County Board of Representatives →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Otsego is the strongest county in this group for published records.
The Sheriff's office keeps a Jail Condition Assessment page that posts the county's own copies of building and facility assessments, including a LaBella 2015 facility conditions assessment, an SMRT 2021 facility conditions assessment and a 2021 Public Safety Building inspection report - that earns the inspections check.
The corrections pages publish visiting days and rules, correspondence rules, commissary rules and five ways to post bail, including a county online bail payment page.
The county also publishes segregated confinement statistics for the jail.
The 2023 adopted budget shows "A3110 SHERIFF" at $2,542,475.00 and "A3150 JAIL" at $3,253,474.00; the budget is linked from the Treasurer's document centre and served from the county CMS file host.
The inmate search the county links is the state DOCCS lookup, not a county roster, so roster is a no.
The commissary page gives a $50 purchase limit but no fee or phone rates, so fees is a no.
No PREA material or deaths record was found on the county's own site.
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 Otsego 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