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

The Detention Center

Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail

Operated bySoutheastern Ohio Regional Jail — a multicounty facility serving Athens, Hocking, Morgan, Perry and Vinton counties
Jail address16677 Riverside Drive, Nelsonville, OH 45764
OpenedApril 1998
Member countiesAthens, Hocking, Morgan, Perry, Vinton
Where Hocking prisoners goThe sheriff's site gives the jail phone as (740) 753-4060 and links seorj.com as the jail website

Source: Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail · checked 2026-09-20

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Hocking 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 built1998 (SEORJ opened April 1998)
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Lanny E. North

Runs the jailNo — Hocking is one of five counties that make up the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail in Nelsonville
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
Office address25 East Second St., Logan, OH 43138

Still needed

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

Source: Hocking 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.

Hocking 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; meets Thursdays at 9:30am. Members listed: Andrew Davidson, Michael Linton, Jason D'Onofrio.
The boardHocking County Board of Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Hocking does not run its own jail. Its sheriff's About page says the office is 'one of five counties which make up the Southeastern Ohio Regional (SEORJ) Jail located in Nelsonville.'
Checks judged on hockingsheriff.org, co.hocking.oh.us and seorj.com (the regional jail's own site is first-party for its member counties).
Roster: seorj.com/inmateinfo links a JDS-hosted in-custody roster headed 'SOUTHEASTERN OHIO REGIONAL JAIL', which opened and showed current inmates, charges and bond amounts.
No separate short-term county holding facility is described on either site.
No rated capacity, bed count, budget line, deaths record, PREA material, county-posted inspection report, housing contract, bond-posting guidance or fee schedule found on the sheriff's site, the county site or the regional jail's site. The regional jail names commissary and phone vendors (iCare, CPC, TouchPay) but publishes no rates.
SEORJ's contact page lists a Warden email (jvanbibber@seorj.com) but prints no first name, so no jail administrator is recorded.
The county's Court Information page lists court contacts only — no bail or bond guidance.
Phone and web checks credited to the office.
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 Hocking 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