Niobrara County, Wyoming — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byNiobrara County Sheriff's Office, Detention Division
What the county saysNo formal facility name is published. The sheriff's site calls it the detention division and describes six certified detention deputies supervising 14 to 20 inmates daily.
Address416 South Elm Street, Lusk, WY 82225, with the sheriff's office.

Source: Niobrara County Sheriff — detention · checked August 21, 2026

Transparency rating

0/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✗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 — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Niobrara County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked August 21, 2026. 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 builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot published

The Sheriff

Sheriff Randy Starkey

Where the name appearsOnly on the sheriff's own site, which the county's official site links to as its sheriff page.

Still needed

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

Source: Niobrara County Sheriff · checked August 21, 2026

The Judges

Wyoming splits the bench. Circuit Court handles initial appearances — the first place bond is set. District Court takes felonies after bindover.

Circuit Court, 8th Judicial District

Hon. Clark C. Allan — appointed January 2021; term expires January 2027
Magistrate Dennis C. Meier — appointed January 2003; term expires January 2029

424 South Elm Street, Lusk, WY 82225

District Court, 8th Judicial District

Hon. F. Scott Peasley — appointed August 2017; term expires January 2031
Hon. Edward A. Buchanan — appointed September 2022; term expires January 2031

424 South Elm Street, Lusk, WY 82225

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 August 21, 2026

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 boardBoard of County Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

The county's own website does not name its sheriff anywhere; it links out to the sheriff's separate site.
In a county this small, the long-serving magistrate may be who actually handles an initial appearance.
Niobrara publishes none of the ten. It is the least-disclosing county in Wyoming.
In fairness: the sheriff's website is mid-rebuild, and every detention subpage currently shows only a notice that the site is being updated. The page structure suggests the county intends to publish commissary, phone and visitation information. Worth re-checking.
The county does publish audited financial reports back to 2007, but public safety appears as one aggregate line with no detention figure.
Worth noting: the county that publishes nothing about its jail does publish commission minutes back to 2000.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Niobrara 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.

The sheriff is on your ballot

In Wyoming the county clerk runs the election in Niobrara County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the Wyoming Secretary of State and vote.gov.

Names verified August 21, 2026 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered