Lawrence County

The Detention Center

Lawrence County Jail

• Operated byLawrence County Sheriff's Office (Sheriff Brian Dean)
• 2020 Census custodial population29 people at "Lawrence Co. Jail" on April 1, 2020, per the Prison Gerrymandering Project's republication of the Census correctional facility file (a one-day snapshot, not a bed count) — see plains_states.json
• What was triedThe South Dakota Sheriffs' Association page for Lawrence County gave the sheriff's name and office address only, with no jail details. The county's own site, https://lawrence.sd.us/, was attempted five separate times this session and failed every time with a robots.txt fetch error ("ConnectTimeout" / "Failed to fetch or parse robots.txt") — a genuine site-access failure, not a provenance refusal.

Source: Prison Gerrymandering Project — South Dakota correctional populations, Census 2020 (via plains_states.json) · 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 Lawrence 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
• BedsNot found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Brian Dean

• ContactPO Box 405, 78-80 Sherman Street, Deadwood, SD 57732-0405
• How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (SDCL 7-7-1.1)
• CircuitFourth Judicial Circuit (SDCL 16-5-1.2)

Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Lawrence 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); a mid-term vacancy is filled by the Governor from two or more names put forward by the Judicial Qualifications Commission. Full-time magistrate judges are nominated by the circuit's presiding judge and approved by the Supreme Court, not elected (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