Jackson County, Wisconsin — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Jackson County Jail

Operated byJackson County Sheriff's Office
Beds60 beds total: 28 maximum-security, 32 minimum-security, plus 2 intake/receiving cells
BuiltConstructed and occupied in 1986, linear architectural design

Source: Jackson County, WI - Corrections/Jail · checked 2026-09-19

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓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 — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Jackson County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-19. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year built1986
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds60

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Duane M. Waldera

Runs the jailJackson County Sheriff's Office operates the Jackson County Jail
How the office is filledElected, four-year term, Wis. Stat. ch. 59; Waldera announced candidacy for reelection in 2026
Statutory basisWis. Stat. ch. 59 (county sheriff, custody of jail)

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Jackson County, WI - Sheriff · 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.

Jackson County Circuit Court

Not found

Still needed

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 boardNot found
Where the jail money is decidedNot found

Notes on the record

PREA check based on the Corrections/Jail page's inmate-classification section, which references the facility's 'Prison Rape Elimination Act Policy' as part of how inmates are classified and housed.
The county's own inmate-list sub-page (co.jackson.wi.us index.asp?...DE=1307206C...) was disallowed by robots.txt at fetch time; it was not cited. A search result also surfaced jacksoncountyso.com, which is the Jackson County, Oklahoma sheriff's site, not Wisconsin — not used.
News reporting (WEAU, March 2026) confirms Sheriff Duane Waldera is running for reelection in 2026, consistent with him being the sitting sheriff.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Jackson 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