The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byNot established — Gregory County contracts for jail services rather than operating its own facility
- Contracts jail servicesSouth Dakota Sheriffs' Association's Gregory County page states plainly: "Contracts jail services" — which county or facility holds Gregory County's prisoners was not named on any source opened
- County's own sitehttps://www.gregory.sdcounty.gov/sheriffsoffice gives only the Sheriff's Office address (221 E. 8th St., Burke, SD) and phone; no jail/detention content
- Not in 2020 Census facility listGregory County does not appear among the county jails counted in the Prison Gerrymandering Project's republished 2020 Census facility file cited in the state-layer research, consistent with having no jail of its own
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Gregory 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 found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Tim Drey
- Runs the jailThe county's own site does not name an operator; the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association's county page states Gregory County "Contracts jail services"
- How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (SDCL 7-7-1.1)
- In office sinceSouth Dakota Sheriffs' Association page states Sheriff Tim Drey "took office in January 2015"
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Gregory County · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
South Dakota circuit judges are elected in a nonpartisan election for an eight-year term (S.D. Const. Art. V, section 7; SDCL 16-6-3); a mid-term vacancy is filled by the Governor from two or more nominees of the Judicial Qualifications Commission. Magistrate judges, who in practice handle most rural first appearances and bail-setting under SDCL 16-12B-7, are not elected: the presiding judge of the circuit nominates them and the Supreme Court approves or disapproves the appointment (SDCL 16-12B-1.2); full-time magistrates serve four-year terms, part-time magistrates serve at the presiding judge's pleasure (SDCL 16-12B-1.3). Named circuit or magistrate judges for Gregory County were not located from any source opened.
Circuit Court — Sixth Circuit
- Not found
Magistrate 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 2026-08-25
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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Gregory County has no jail of its own — it contracts for jail services, per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — but which facility holds its prisoners is not stated by any source opened, so that is recorded as not established rather than guessed.
- The county's own site (gregory.sdcounty.gov) publishes no jail/detention information of any kind; its elected-officials and commissioners pages render commissioner names through a JavaScript component that this pass could not read.
- State-layer finding applies: no state agency inspects adult county jails in South Dakota (SDCL ch. 24-11 has no inspection section); the only outside check is a circuit judge's discretionary visitation power under SDCL 24-11-27.
- Board of County Commissioners meets "the first and third Wednesday of the month at 9:00 am in the County Commissioner chamber," per the county's own Commissioners page. Individual commissioner names load through a JavaScript widget that could not be read in this pass, so names are recorded as Not found rather than guessed.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Gregory 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