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

The Detention Center

Darke County Correctional Facility

Operated byDarke County Sheriff's Office
Jail address5185 County Home Rd, Greenville, Ohio 45331
Rated capacity"36 bed, non smoking, county owned jail" (sheriff's jail page)
RosterIn-custody list published through darke.miamivalleyjails.org, linked from the sheriff's jail page
VisitationSundays 1-4 PM; Wednesdays 1-4 PM and 7-9:30 PM; two 15-minute visits weekly

Source: Darke County Sheriff's Office — Jail · 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 Darke 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
Beds36

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Mark Whittaker

Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office operates the Darke County Correctional Facility, described on its site as a "36 bed, non smoking, county owned jail"
How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Ohio Rev. Code 311.01)
Office address5185 County Home Road, Greenville, OH 45331

Still needed

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

Source: Darke 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.

Darke 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.
NoteThree-member Board of County Commissioners under Ohio Rev. Code 305.01. No Darke County government website could be opened, so the board page and minutes are not recorded.
The boardDarke County Board of Commissioners
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

The sheriff's own site names the jail, gives its address and states a 36-bed capacity.
The in-custody roster is at darke.miamivalleyjails.org, linked from the sheriff's jail page; it identifies the Darke County jail and runs on the Montgomery County commissioners' jail-roster platform, not a commercial aggregator.
The only fee schedule the sheriff publishes covers public records, background checks and concealed-carry licences — no jail phone, commissary or booking rates, so 'fees' is 'no'.
What was tried: co.darke.oh.us resolves only to a Darke County solid waste district site titled 'My Darke County Ohio' with no county government navigation; darkecountyohio.gov does not resolve. No county commissioners' page, budget document or county-seat page could be opened, so seat_source is blank.
The sheriff lists annual reports for 2022-2025 but the report documents themselves were not reachable from that page.
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 Darke 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