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

The Detention Center

Westchester County Jail (Jail Division and Penitentiary Division)

Operated byWestchester County Department of Correction
Jail addressValhalla, NY 10595
Design capacity1,821 (2016-17 PREA audit report)
Population at audit1,054
DivisionsJail Division holds people 16 and over awaiting criminal proceedings; Penitentiary Division holds men sentenced to a year or less
AccreditationAmerican Correctional Association accredited; health services accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care
SizeThe department's own audit describes it as the second largest jail in New York State
Jail AdministratorJoseph K. Spano, Commissioner of Correction

Source: Westchester County Department of Correction — About Us · 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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Westchester 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 builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds1,821 design capacity

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Not found

Runs the jailNo — the Westchester County Department of Correction, under Commissioner Joseph K. Spano, runs the county jail at Valhalla, not a sheriff
County ExecutiveKenneth W. Jenkins

Still needed

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

Source: Westchester County Department of Correction · 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.

Westchester 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.
NoteThe county also has an elected County Executive; the Board of Legislators' own pages were refused to our reader.
The boardWestchester County Board of Legislators
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

Westchester is the clear New York case of a county department of correction: the jail is run by the Westchester County Department of Correction under a commissioner, not by a sheriff, and it has its own domain.
PREA: the department publishes a full PREA audit report on its own domain, and a county press release says it was the first county jail in New York State to achieve PREA compliance; its policies page also states a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse and on excessive force.
Capacity comes from that published PREA audit: 1,821 design capacity, 1,054 in custody at the time of the audit.
Bail: the FAQ page says bail can be posted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in cash or by major credit card, and that commissary gifts are ordered through iCare; no rates are published.
The FAQ describes an inmate lookup, but the lookup page itself was refused to our reader, so the roster check stays "no".
Several department pages (divisions, inmate information, inmate lookup) and the county's Board of Legislators pages returned 403 to our reader, so no county seat page could be opened and the seat is recorded as Not 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 Westchester 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