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

The Detention Center

Yates County Jail

Operated byYates County Sheriff's Office
Jail address227 Main Street, Penn Yan, NY 14527
BailTaken 24 hours a day in cash, by credit card, bank check or bond; the county says the jail "does not impose any fee", though outside processors may add a surcharge
Commissary and fundsLobby kiosk or mycarepack.com, fees charged by the processor
VisitsScheduled by phone; new arrivals get one 15-minute non-contact visit within 24 hours
Jail AdministratorJared R. Bailey, Chief Corrections Officer (named in the county's 2020 jail information guide)

Source: Yates County Jail general information guide (county document centre) · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
✗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 — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Yates 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
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Frank Ryan

Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office runs the Yates County Jail
Source of nameNamed as Sheriff in the county Public Safety Committee minutes of 3 March 2026

Still needed

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

Source: Yates County Public Safety Committee minutes, 3 March 2026 · 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.

Yates 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 Legislature meets at 417 Liberty Street, Penn Yan; agendas and minutes are in the county agenda centre.
The boardYates County Legislature →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

The county's own site at yatescounty.org and the sheriff's site at yatescountysheriff.gov were both refused to our reader by robots rules; everything here comes from the county's other domain, yatescountyny.gov.
The jail information guide in the county document centre names the Yates County Jail, gives its address and phone, and sets out visiting, mail, funds, commissary and bail procedures. It is dated August 2020 and names Sheriff Ronald G. Spike and Chief Corrections Officer Jared R. Bailey; the sheriff recorded here is Frank Ryan, named in county committee minutes from March 2026.
Legislature papers on the county domain refer to the Yates County Jail, including a jail nurse resolution in the June 2026 agenda, and the county home page advertises a Public Safety Facility Project.
The county's archived budget document listing a Jail department page was refused to our reader with repeated rate-limit errors, so the budget check could not be judged "yes".
No rated capacity, inmate roster, PREA material, inspection report or death-in-custody record was found on the county site; the guide says the jail charges no bail fee of its own.
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 Yates 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