The Detention Center
Dodge County Jail
- Operated byDodge County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address216 W. Center Street, Juneau, WI 53039
- Beds358 beds
- Federal detainee agreementsSite states the jail houses federal detainees through agreements with the U.S. Marshals Service, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and ICE
- Jail AdministratorScott Smith, Jail Captain
Source: Dodge County Sheriff's Office - Jail · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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
- ✓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
- Beds358
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dale J. Schmidt
- Runs the jailDodge County Sheriff's Office operates the Dodge County Jail in Juneau
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, Wis. Stat. ch. 59
- Statutory basisWis. Stat. ch. 59 (county sheriff, custody of jail)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Dodge 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.
Dodge 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 boardDodge County Board of Supervisors →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- dodgecountysheriff.com is the county's own sheriff's office domain; co.dodge.wi.gov/sheriff redirects to it (confirmed via HTTP 302).
- Inmate Services page links annual PREA reports for 2020-2025 (each a distinct county-hosted PDF) and lists a fee schedule (booking $50, Huber $168/week, GPS $168/week, etc.) and bond/bail payment info via AllPaid with a 9% service fee.
- No inmate roster, budget with sheriff/jail line items, inspection reports, contracts, or deaths-in-custody data found on the sheriff's office site; the county administrator's budget-documents page returned a 404 when checked.
- What was tried: searched co.dodge.wi.gov budget-documents and county-budget pages for an adopted budget PDF with sheriff/jail line items — page listed only generic links, none confirmed opened with sheriff/jail figures.
- State inspection/oversight: Wisconsin DOC Division of Community Corrections inspects county jails under Wis. Admin. Code DOC 350; not independently confirmed to apply to Dodge County on the county's own site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Dodge 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