Brule County

The Detention Center

Brule County Jail

• Operated byBrule County Sheriff's Office (Sheriff Darrell Miller)
• CapacityTwenty beds, per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association
• 2020 Census custodial population17 people on April 1, 2020, per the Prison Gerrymandering Project's republication of the Census correctional facility file — see plains_states.json
• What was triedThe county's own website could not be identified with confidence: the South Dakota Association of Counties directory lists it as brulecounty.gov, while the dakotaathome.sd.gov state directory lists brulecounty.org; both domains were attempted and refused (no search-result provenance for either, and the search budget was exhausted). A Brule County commissioners' meeting document at sdlocalgov.appssd.sd.gov (a state-run local-government document portal, not the county's own domain) was opened but returned as unreadable binary content.

Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Brule County · checked 2026-08-25

• ✗The jail is named — not published
• ✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Brule County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-25. 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
• Beds20, per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association (not the county's own site — not counted toward the checks above)

The Sheriff

Sheriff Darrell Miller

• Tenure"in office since January 1991" per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — that date was not independently reconfirmed this session and may be a stale bio; recorded as-is because it is the only source found
• Staffing"a staff of eleven including two sworn deputies and a twenty bed jail", per the same source
• How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (SDCL 7-7-1.1)
• Contact (Sheriffs' Association page)300 S. Courtland #112, Chamberlain, SD 57325-1599; 605-734-4443
• Contact (dakotaathome.sd.gov state directory)201 W. Kellam Avenue, Chamberlain, SD 57325; 605-234-4443 — address and phone differ from the Sheriffs' Association listing; which is current was not resolved this session

Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Brule County · checked 2026-08-25

The Judges

South Dakota circuit judges are elected nonpartisan for an eight-year term (SD Const. Art. V §7; SDCL 16-6-3). Full-time magistrate judges are nominated by the circuit's presiding judge and approved by the Supreme Court (SDCL 16-12B-1.2). No county-specific judge names were located from a source opened this session.

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-25

The County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

• What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
• What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
• The boardBoard of County Commissioners