The Detention Center
Walworth County Jail
- Operated byWalworth County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address1770 County Road NN, Elkhorn, WI 53121
- Beds512-bed capacity; opened November 1995 with 398 beds, expanded to current capacity in 2003
- HousingDirect-supervision housing units for male and female inmates
- Jail AdministratorSteve Sax — Jail Administrator, Walworth County Sheriff's Office
Source: Walworth County, WI · checked 2026-09-19
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗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 built1995 (opened), expanded 2003
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds512
Since then
- 2003 expansion from an original 398 beds to 512 beds
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dave Gerber
- Runs the jailThe Walworth County Sheriff's Office Corrections Division operates the county jail in Elkhorn
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term, Wis. Stat. ch. 59; site describes him as the 44th sheriff
- Statutory basisWis. Stat. ch. 59 (county sheriff has custody of the county jail)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Walworth County, WI · 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.
Walworth 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 boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- The Inmates page links out to separate visitation, telephone, commissary, and mail sub-pages, but no fee schedule with dollar amounts, PREA documentation, inspection reports, contracts, or death records were found on the county's own site.
- A 2025 Annual Report is referenced via a third-party hosting platform (simplebooklet.com), not the county's own domain, so it was not counted toward the audit checks.
- State inspection/oversight: Wisconsin DOC Division of Community Corrections inspects county jails under Wis. Admin. Code DOC 350; applicability to Walworth County jail not independently confirmed on the sheriff's site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Walworth 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