The Detention Center
Sanpete County Sheriff's Complex
- Operated bySanpete County Sheriff's Office
- Address1130 S Service Berry Rd, Manti, UT 84642
- Jail Division commanderCaptain Jeff Nielsen
- DesignPhase I: 128 cell beds, 2 floors, 8 cells per block; video visitation in each block; medical staffed by one doctor and an RN, clinics twice weekly
- Future phasesTwo additional phases planned, for 384 total inmate capacity when complete; no dates published
- What was triedSite search for 'PREA', 'inspection', 'death', 'contract', 'commissary', 'Securus', 'GTL' — no results for those terms
Source: Sanpete County — Jail Division · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds128 (Phase I); planned total of 384 when two additional phases are built
Since then
- Phase I complete (128 beds). Two additional phases planned to reach 384 total beds; no dates or costs published.
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jared Buchanan
- Runs the jailYes — Sanpete County Sheriff's Complex, under the Sheriff's Office
- Confirmed onCounty staff directory and Utah Sheriffs' Association directory
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Sanpete County — Directory (Sheriff Jared Buchanan) · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Utah judges are appointed by the Governor through a nominating commission, then face retention election. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. The Sixth Judicial District covers Garfield, Kane, Piute, Sanpete, Sevier, and Wayne Counties.
Sixth District Court — Presiding Judge
- Mandy Larsen
Justice Court
- Not found — no judge named on the county's Justice Court page
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
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
- Booking Reports (dated PDF arrest logs, e.g. https://www.sanpetecountyutah.gov/178/Booking-Reports) list bail amounts per arrest but are not a live in-custody roster, so 'roster' is marked no.
- Remote video visitation is billed at $0.30/minute; bail can be paid online via GovPayNow or by phone (888-604-7888), both published on the Inmate Visitation page.
- Utah Sheriffs' Association jail standards: no inspection result for Sanpete County found published anywhere on the county's own site.
- Sanpete County Commission (Board of County Commissioners); meets first and third Tuesday of each month at the County Courthouse, Manti.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Sanpete 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 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered