The Detention Center
Brown County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center
- Operated byBrown County Sheriff's Office - Jail Division
- Jail address3030 Curry Lane, Green Bay, WI
- Beds662 adults and 15 juveniles; a planned expansion (new pod, expected completion September 2026) adds 129 beds and replaces a downtown facility
- Population2025 daily population approximately 840 inmates including Electronic Monitoring Program participants
- Structure12 pods (7 indirect supervision, 4 direct supervision, 1 juvenile, 1 inmate worker); about 160 sworn and non-sworn staff
- Jail AdministratorHeidi Michel — Captain and Jail Administrator, Brown County Main Jail
Source: Brown County - Sheriff's Office - Jail Division - About · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗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
- Beds662 adults and 15 juveniles (pre-expansion)
Since then
- New pod under construction as of the 2026 Adopted Budget, expected completion September 2026, adding 129 beds and replacing a downtown facility
The Sheriff
Sheriff Todd J. Delain
- Runs the jailBrown County Sheriff's Office - Jail Division operates the Brown County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center
- How the office is filledElected every four years on a partisan ballot, per the Sheriff's Office's own description of state law, Wis. Stat. ch. 59
- Statutory basisSheriff's statutory duties per the office's own site include enforcing county law, managing the jail, attending courts, and serving legal process; Delain has served since January 2019
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Brown County Sheriff's Office · 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.
Brown 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 boardBrown County Board of Supervisors, Chair Patrick Buckley (District 11), Vice-Chair Dave Kaster (District 16) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Jail Division publishes downloadable PREA Annual Reports spanning 2016 through 2025 on its own PREA page, describing a zero-tolerance sexual-abuse/harassment policy and reporting procedures.
- County hosts a live, county-run Jail Inmate Lookup Tool at lookup-inmate-jail.browncountywi.gov, searchable by name or inmate number, including released inmates.
- 2026 Executive Budget Message cites $1.35 million in increased jail medical-services costs and references the new-pod construction project, but does not break out a full stand-alone Sheriff's Office/Jail budget line in the section reviewed.
- No bond/bail payment page, fee schedule, inspection report, or contracts (food/medical/commissary vendor) page found on the Sheriff's Office - Jail Division pages checked.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Brown 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