Clinton County, Ohio — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Clinton County Jail

Operated byClinton County Sheriff's Office
Jail address1645 Davids Drive, Wilmington, Ohio 45177
Beds92
Opened2001
VisitationVideo visitation only; two 20-minute visits a week
VendorsSecurus Technologies for inmate telephones and tablets; JPay and a lobby kiosk for deposits

Source: Clinton County Sheriff's Office — Corrections · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✓Beds and daily population
✗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 — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Clinton 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 built2001
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds92

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Douglas A. Eastes

Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office runs the Clinton County Jail at 1645 Davids Drive, Wilmington
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
NoteDescribed on the office's own site as the 47th Sheriff of Clinton County

Still needed

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

Source: Clinton County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-20

The Judges

Ohio common pleas judges are elected to six-year terms; municipal and county court judges also set bail for people arrested in their areas. They are state judicial officers, not county officials.

Clinton 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 Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe jail budget, the building itself, and the agreements that send prisoners to a regional jail or rent beds to other agencies. In Cuyahoga and Summit, the elected County Executive and County Council.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and has charge of the county jail by state law (Ohio Rev. Code 341.01) — unless the county uses a regional jail run by a multicounty board.
NoteNo commissioners' page was reached from the sheriff's site.
The boardClinton County Board of Commissioners
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

The sheriff's own corrections page names the Clinton County Jail, gives its 92 beds and says it opened in 2001; the jail information page gives the address and the visitation, commissary and telephone arrangements.
The 'Active Inmates' lookup the sheriff's site links carries a Clinton County Sheriff's Office disclaimer identifying it as the office's own public-service list, so the roster check is 'yes'; the page warns it 'should not be considered an official record or an official list of inmates'.
Commissary, tablet and telephone vendors are named but no rates are published, so the fees check is 'no'.
No PREA, deaths-in-custody, inspection-report, contract or bond-posting material was found on the sheriff's site.
No Clinton County government site was reached, so no commissioners' minutes or county budget could be cited.
State inspection/oversight: Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, through its Bureau of Adult Detention, inspects full-service county jails each year against the Minimum Standards for Jails in Ohio (Ohio Adm. Code 5120:1-8) and publishes the reports on its own website.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clinton 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 commissioners who pay for it.

Names verified 2026-09-20 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered