The Detention Center
Ashland County Jail
- Operated byAshland County Sheriff's Office (Corrections)
- Jail address220 6th St E, Ashland, WI 54806 (same building as Sheriff's Office)
- Alternative programsElectronic Home Detention, Work Release (Huber), and Work Time Credit and Community Service
- BedsNot found
Source: Ashland County Sheriff's Office - Corrections · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓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 — 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 Brian Zupke
- Runs the jailAshland County Sheriff's Office Corrections division operates the Ashland County Jail
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, Wis. Stat. ch. 59; listed as a 'County Constitutional Officer' in the county's own official directory
- Statutory basisSheriff's Office describes itself as chief law enforcement agency for Ashland County
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Ashland County, WI - 2026-2027 Official Directory (PDF) · checked 2026-09-19
The Judges
Wisconsin circuit court judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms under Wis. Const. art. VII — state judicial officers, not county officials.
Ashland County Circuit Court
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-19
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 boardAshland County Board of Supervisors, Chair Gary A. Mertig, Vice-Chair Clarence Campbell →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- County's own site publishes a run of annual county budget documents (2014-2026) at the Budgets news page, but jail-specific line items were not individually verified.
- County's 2026-2027 Official Directory PDF, hosted on the county's own domain, is the most authoritative source found for the current Sheriff's name.
- No published inmate roster, bed capacity, death records, PREA report, inspection report, contracts, bond schedule, or fee schedule found on the Sheriff's Office pages checked (main Sheriff page, Corrections page).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Ashland 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 2026-09-19 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered