The Detention Center
Adams County Jail
- Operated byAdams County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address210 W Broadway, Ritzville, WA 99169 — inside the Sheriff's Office
- Published capacity30 beds (county Jail Information page)
- Currently housing prisonersNo — WASPC's 2025 jail statistics list the Adams County Sheriff's Office under 'Agencies Not Reporting' with the explanation 'Agency not currently housing offenders'
- Where the county's prisoners goBenton and Franklin county jails; deputies drive them back to Ritzville on court days
- Why it stopped housingA May 2022 inmate altercation seriously injured a corrections officer and an inmate; six of nine jailers left afterwards (Columbia Basin Herald 9/25/2023; Ritzville Adams County Journal 6/26/2024)
- ConditionA National Institute of Corrections study found the facility outdated and in need of modernisation; manual locks, electrical and HVAC problems reported (Ritzville Adams County Journal 6/26/2024)
- Out-of-county commitment rate$63 per day, paid in full in advance, for a person approved to serve another jurisdiction's commitment here (county FAQ)
- RosterReal-time roster is offered only through the Adams County Sheriff's phone app, not on the county website
- Year built / original cost / fundingNot found — checked the Jail Information page, the Jail Roster & Release Information page, the Sheriff page, the Board of Commissioners page, the county sitemap and the county FAQ
Source: Adams County — Jail Information · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗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
- ✗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
- Beds30 (county Jail Information page). WASPC's 2025 statewide jail statistics list the agency as not currently housing offenders.
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dale Wagner
- Runs the jailYes — Adams County has no separate department of corrections, so under RCW 70.48.090(4) the Sheriff's Office has charge of the jail
- But the jail holds nobodyThe Adams County Jail has not housed inmates since May 2022; prisoners are held in Benton and Franklin county jails
- Day-to-day jail managementCmdr. Kelly Watkins, Jail Commander
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- Office210 W Broadway, Ritzville, WA 99169 — corrections desk 509-659-3331
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Adams County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Washington Superior Court judges are elected in nonpartisan countywide races, and District Court judges are elected in nonpartisan district races. Both are state judicial officers, not county officials — the county pays part of the cost but does not choose the judge. A judge, not the sheriff or the jail, sets bail. Court rosters here come from the Administrative Office of the Courts' county directory.
Adams County Superior Court — 210 W Broadway Ave, Ritzville
- K. Peter Palubicki, Judge
Adams County District Court — Othello
- Carolyn J. Benzel, Judge
Adams County District Court — Ritzville
- Andrea K. Russell, Judge
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
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
- The county names a 30-bed jail on its own site but the facility has held nobody since May 2022; the site does not say so. The closure is documented in local news and in WASPC's 2025 'Agencies Not Reporting' sheet, not by the county.
- roster: marked no because the county publishes no web roster — it directs the public to a phone app in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
- capacity: 30 beds is published; no daily population figure is published, so the check fails on the second half.
- budget: no budget document is published on the county website — checked the sitemap, the Auditor page, the Treasurer page and the Board of Commissioners pages.
- contracts: the county publishes a $63-per-day out-of-county commitment fee charged to an individual, not an agency contract with a rate.
- WASPC 2025 statewide jail statistics: https://www.waspc.org/annual-jail-statistics (data file https://waspc.memberclicks.net/assets/JbrsSavin/2025.xlsx).
- Three commissioners elected by district: Dan Blankenship (District 1), Jay R. Weise (District 2), Mike Garza (District 3). Adams County has no jail district and no dedicated jail tax that the county publishes.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Adams 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.
The county auditor runs the election in Adams County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from USA.gov and vote.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered