MoBetta Delaware — Every County. A Jail, a Sheriff, a Judge.

The State Line

The county runs the jail. Delaware decides whether the county has to tell you about it.

Before you click a county, here are the rules that county is playing by. Three questions, asked the same way of every state.

Does anybody inspect this jail? No agency named in statute.
no
Can you read the inspection report?Whether the finding is posted where a resident can find it.
no
Does the law require a death in custody to be reported? State law requires a death in custody to be reported.
yes
Is the result published? Nobody has to hand it to you. That is what we are building.
no

Delaware has no county jails. The state Department of Correction holds everyone in adult custody, from the night of arrest through the end of a sentence. Delaware is one of six states the Bureau of Justice Statistics excludes from its Census of Jails because it runs a combined jail-prison system. 11 Del. C. Sec. 6502 gives the Department jurisdiction over adult detention statewide and defines 'inmate population' to include both convicted people and pretrial detainees. The only standing outside review body identified is the Adult Correction Healthcare Review Committee (11 Del. C. Sec. 6518), which reviews medical records and autopsies of people who die while incarcerated and reports to the Governor and General Assembly by December 31 each year; it reviews health care, not the facilities themselves.

Compare all fifty states →

Every one of these counties has a jail, a sheriff, and a judge.

That is the one thing every county in America has in common. The jail belongs to the people of the county and is paid for out of their taxes. The sheriff who runs it is elected. The judge who decides who sits in it is elected or appointed. Three offices, enormous power, and almost nobody watching.

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

The JailWho it holds, what it costs the county, and who dies in it.

The SheriffElected. Runs the jail. Sets its budget request and its culture.

The JudgeSets bond — which decides who waits in that jail and who goes home.

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. The Justice Department is required to count deaths in custody and does not do it properly — a Senate investigation found it failed to identify more than 990 such deaths in a single year. MoBetta is building the county-by-county record instead.

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriffs who run these jails are elected. So are the commissioners who pay for them.

Deadlines, ID rules and Delaware’s own election office, from vote.gov — the official U.S. government voter site. Where you vote on the day is set by your county election office.

Delaware — all 3 counties open. Click any county on the map, or see the transparency scoreboard below.

We Decide. We Lead. We Vote.

The county runs the jail. Delaware decides whether the county has to tell you about it.

Every one of these counties has a jail, a sheriff, and a judge.