The Detention Center
Jefferson County Jail
- Operated byJefferson County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address16001 State Route 7, Steubenville, Ohio 43952
- Adult jail phone740-284-3350
- Juvenile detention phone740-283-8684
- Money for inmates'Funds must be mailed in the form of a money order not to exceed $50.00 and addressed to the Sheriff's Office in care of the inmate.'
- State's name for the facilityODRC's 2025 inspection listing calls it the Jefferson County Justice Center
- Jail AdministratorJohn Parker — Major, named on the sheriff's Jail Administration page
Source: Jefferson County Sheriff's Office — Jail Administration · checked 2026-09-20
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✓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 — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
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 Fred J. Abdalla
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office runs the county jail
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Office address16001 State Route 7, Steubenville, Ohio 43952
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Jefferson 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.
Jefferson County Circuit Court
- Not found
- 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.
- NoteOhio Rev. Code 305.01 three-member board. The county's own site, jeffersoncountyoh.com, would not render for our reader — it returns only 'This website doesn't work properly without JavaScript enabled' — so no commissioner names, agendas or minutes could be read and none are recorded.
- The boardJefferson County Board of Commissioners
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Checks judged on jeffersoncountysheriff.com only. The county's own domain, jeffersoncountyoh.com, is a JavaScript-only site that returned no readable content on either the commissioners page or the county directory, so nothing on it could be scored.
- The sheriff's site prints 'Sheriff Fred J. Abdalla'; the Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association directory lists 'Fred Abdalla Jr.' The county page's spelling is used here.
- The sheriff's site names the facility the Jefferson County Jail; the state's inspection listing uses 'Jefferson County Justice Center'.
- The site's 'Inmate Search' link goes to VINELink, a commercial aggregator, which does not count as the county's roster.
- The money-order limit of $50.00 is a deposit cap, not a published fee rate, so fees scored 'no'.
- No rated capacity, jail budget line, deaths record, PREA material, county-posted inspection report, housing contract or bond-posting guidance found on the sheriff's domain.
- Phone and web checks credited to the office.
- State inspection/oversight: Ohio's Bureau of Adult Detention inspected the Jefferson County Justice Center in 2025 under the Minimum Standards for Jails in Ohio (Ohio Adm. Code 5120:1-8); the report, published 2 December 2025, is on the state's site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Jefferson 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