The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byNot found
- 2020 Census facility listLyman County does not appear as a county-jail entry in the Census Bureau's 2020 correctional facility file republished by the Prison Gerrymandering Project (see plains_states.json) — a floor, consistent with (not proof of) no county-run jail.
- What was triedThe South Dakota Sheriffs' Association page for Lyman County named the sheriff and his staffing but said nothing about a jail. The county's own site, http://lymancounty.org/, was fetched successfully but its content is a general courthouse-directory welcome page signed by the county auditor, with no visible link to a sheriff, jail, commissioners, or budget page in the returned content.
Source: · 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 Steve Manger
- ContactPO Box 97, 300 S. Main, Kennebec, SD 57544-0097; 605-869-2267
- In office sinceJanuary 2011, per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association
- StaffingOversees "a staff of four employees including three sworn Deputy Sheriffs," per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association
- How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (SDCL 7-7-1.1)
- CircuitSixth Judicial Circuit (SDCL 16-5-1.2)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Lyman 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.
- 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
- Lyman County's own site is reachable but, as fetched, exposes only a general courthouse-directory welcome page; none of the ten items were found published on the county's own domain, so every check is "no." That is a real finding about what the site currently exposes, not a claim that Lyman County withholds these records on request.
- South Dakota has no state agency that inspects adult county jails. See the state-layer entry in plains_states.json (SDCL ch. 24-11 contains no inspection section; SDCL 24-11-27 is a discretionary circuit-judge visitation power only).
- Board of County Commissioners (per SDCL ch. 7-8). Lyman County's own site, http://lymancounty.org/, loaded as a general courthouse-directory page; no page naming individual commissioners, minutes, agendas, or a budget was located in the content returned.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Lyman 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