The Detention Center
The county publishes no formal name for this facility.
- Operated byNone — Butte County "contracts with other counties for jail beds and is in a compact with Western SD Juvenile Services Center", per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association
- Where prisoners goNot named specifically — the source states only that the county contracts with unnamed "other counties" for adult jail beds, plus a compact with the Western SD Juvenile Services Center for juveniles
- 2020 CensusButte County does not appear among the 26 South Dakota counties with a facility in the 2020 Census correctional-facility file, consistent with contracting out rather than operating a jail (see plains_states.json)
- What was triedButte County's own website, buttesd.org, was found via the South Dakota Association of County Officials' directory but could not be fetched this session (refused for lack of search-result provenance; the search budget was exhausted before a Butte-specific search could be run).
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Butte County · checked 2026-08-25
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot applicable — no county-operated jail
- Original costNot applicable
- Paid for byNot applicable
- BedsNot applicable
Since then
- Not applicable
The Sheriff
Sheriff Fred Lamphere
- Staffing19 total staff, 5 sworn deputies, per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association
- Contract communities"Fruitdale, Nisland, and Newell"
- Contact839 5th Ave, Belle Fourche, SD 57717; (605) 892-3324; fred.lamphere@buttesd.org
- How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (SDCL 7-7-1.1)
- County websiteButte County's own website (buttesd.org) exists per the South Dakota Association of County Officials' directory, but could not be opened this session — see jail.facts
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Butte 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.
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-25
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
Notes on the record
- Butte County has no jail of its own; it contracts with other, unnamed counties for adult beds and separately compacts with the Western SD Juvenile Services Center. This is recorded as a finding, not a gap.
- buttesd.org, Butte County's own website, could not be fetched this session for lack of search-result provenance (the 5-search budget for the group was exhausted); all ten checks are therefore "no" by the brief's rule requiring an opened page on the county's own domain.
- South Dakota has no state agency that inspects adult county jails. See the state-layer entry in plains_states.json.
- Board of County Commissioners (per SDCL ch. 7-8). Individual commissioner names could not be confirmed this session because buttesd.org could not be fetched (see jail.facts "What was tried").
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Butte 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 2026-08-25 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered