The Detention Center
Tompkins County Jail
- Operated byTompkins County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address779 Warren Road, Ithaca, NY 14850 (NYS Commission of Correction facility list)
- StandardsThe county says the facility "is operated in accordance with State and Federal Jail Standards"
- CommissaryDeposits by Smart Deposit, kiosk, mail or phone; "A handling charge will be accessed based on the deposit amount"
- PhonesSecurus Technologies; the Sheriff's Office says it is not involved in billing
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Lauran Harrison, Corrections Division supervisor
Source: Tompkins County Sheriff's Office — Corrections Division · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
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 Derek R. Osborne
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office Corrections Division operates the Tompkins County Jail
- UndersheriffJennifer K. Olin
- Corrections staffing40 corrections officers; the largest division of the office
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Tompkins County Sheriff's Office — Administration · 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.
Tompkins 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.
- NoteAgendas, minutes and resolutions are posted on the county's meeting portal at tompkinscountyny.iqm2.com.
- The boardTompkins County Legislature →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The Corrections Division pages name the Tompkins County Jail and cover bail, visitation, mail, phones, commissary and property.
- The bail page publishes exact charges: 7% of the bail amount for remote credit-card payment and a 3% fee deducted when a court releases bail funds; commissary deposits carry an unstated "handling charge".
- Budget: the adopted 2022 budget book on the county site shows separate "Sheriff's Office" ($5,686,602) and "Sheriff's Office - Jail" ($5,396,609) local-dollar lines; the 2027 recommended budget book is also posted but its PDF exceeded our reader's size limit.
- No rated capacity, daily population, inmate roster, PREA material, inspection report or death-in-custody record was found on the county site.
- The Sheriff's Office policy page lists general orders (including sexual assault response and use of force) but the documents themselves are hosted off-domain on PowerDMS, and none is a PREA jail policy.
- 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 Tompkins 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