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

The Detention Center

Crawford County Jail

Operated byCrawford County Sheriff's Office
Jail address3613 Stetzer Road, Bucyrus, Ohio 44820
Beds121
StaffingAbout 30 corrections officers, plus medical personnel
Bookings1,422 people booked in 2025
Also calledCrawford County Justice Center in the office's 2025 annual report
Jail costs 2025Medical $359,147.13; food service $294,840.69

Source: Crawford County Sheriff's Office — Jail Administrator's Message · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓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 — 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 Crawford 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
Beds121

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Scott M. Kent

Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office runs the Crawford County Jail at 3613 Stetzer Road, Bucyrus, and the sheriff signs the jail administrator's message
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
Office phone(419) 562-7906

Still needed

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

Source: Crawford 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.

Crawford 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 Crawford County government site was reached from the sheriff's site.
The boardCrawford County Board of Commissioners
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

The sheriff's own site names the Crawford County Jail and publishes its 121-bed capacity and staffing.
The office's 2025 annual report, posted on its own site, gives 1,422 bookings and 2025 jail medical and food costs, but no county budget document with a sheriff or jail line was reached, so the budget check is 'no'.
The jail administrator's message says the jail is 'currently housing prisoners for other agencies because of jail overcrowding' and that 'Contracts are being accepted', but no contract document is published, so the contracts check is 'no'.
The 2025 annual report notes that the jail must meet state minimum standards and that a yearly state inspection is conducted, but the county does not post a copy of the inspection report, so the inspections check is 'no'.
No public in-custody roster, PREA material, deaths-in-custody record, bond-posting guidance or fee rates were found on the sheriff's site.
The sheriff's site links a community-notification vendor portal rather than a county roster; vendor portals count for nothing.
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 Crawford 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