McPherson County

The Detention Center

Not found

• Operated byNot found
• State resource-directory listingThe state's Dakota at Home directory lists "County Correctional Facilities" among the McPherson County Sheriff's Office's services, but names no jail and gives no address, capacity, or other detail; this is a state directory, not the county's own site, so it is reported as a lead, not a county-published fact
• 2020 Census facility listMcPherson 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; McPherson had 2,411 residents at the 2020 census, per Wikipedia
• What was triedThe South Dakota Sheriffs' Association page for McPherson County said nothing about a jail. The county's own site, https://mcpherson.sdcounties.org/, was fetched successfully but its content was limited to courthouse notices (holiday hours, building permits, a zoning variance) with no visible sheriff, jail, or budget link. A search-surfaced sheriff subpage on the same domain, https://mcpherson.sdcounties.org/?page_id=36, failed on repeated attempts with a TLS certificate/robots.txt error ("Hostname mismatch" / "Failed to fetch or parse robots.txt").

Source: · 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 McPherson 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 David Ackerman

• ContactPO Box 158, Leola, SD 57456-0158; 605-439-3400
• Staffing"One full time deputy primarily assigned to the city of Eureka," per the South Dakota Sheriffs' Association, serving "an estimated population of 3000"
• How the office is filledElected countywide, four-year term (SDCL 7-7-1.1)
• CircuitFifth Judicial Circuit (SDCL 16-5-1.2)

Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — McPherson 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 →