The State Line
The county runs the jail. The state decides whether you get to know anything about it.
Every county in America has a jail, a sheriff who runs it, and a judge who decides who sits in it. Those are county offices, paid for with county money. But whether that county has to be inspected, whether a death inside has to be reported, and whether any of it reaches the public — that is set at the state capitol. Same three questions, asked of every state.
Established so far
CaliforniaInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished yes
ColoradoInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished yes
DelawareInspected noDeath reported yesPublished no
IdahoInspected noDeath reported noPublished no
KansasInspected noDeath reported yesPublished no
MaineInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished partial
MontanaInspected not establishedDeath reported yesPublished no
NebraskaInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished partial
New HampshireInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished no
New MexicoInspected noDeath reported noPublished no
North DakotaInspected yesDeath reported partialPublished no
OklahomaInspected yesDeath reported not establishedPublished no
Rhode IslandInspected noDeath reported yesPublished no
South DakotaInspected noDeath reported partialPublished no
TexasInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished partial
UtahInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished yes
VermontInspected yesDeath reported yesPublished yes
WyomingInspected noDeath reported not establishedPublished no
Every jurisdiction
| Jurisdiction | Anybody inspect the jail? | Must a death be reported? | Is it published? | Who inspects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Alaska | not established | not established | not established | — |
| American Samoa | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Arizona | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Arkansas | not established | not established | not established | — |
| California | yes | yes | yes | Board of State and Community Corrections |
| Colorado | yes | yes | yes | Colorado Jail Standards Commission (statewide standards; compliance assessment work recommended to be housed at County Sheriffs of Colorado using peer-professional review teams) with civil pattern-and-practice enforcement authority given to the Colorado Attorney General. Separately, the Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ) sets minimum standards for short-term 'temporary holding facilities' and inspects secure juvenile facilities. |
| Connecticut | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Delaware | no | yes | no | — |
| District of Columbia | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Florida | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Georgia | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Guam | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Hawaiʻi | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Idaho | no | no | no | Idaho Sheriffs' Association (through its Jail Standards Committee: sheriffs, jail commanders, county commissioners, a Department of Correction representative, and a POST representative). This is not a state regulatory agency; the Idaho Sheriffs' Association itself has stated it is exempt from Idaho's public disclosure law. |
| Illinois | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Indiana | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Iowa | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Kansas | no | yes | no | No state agency has authority to inspect adult county jails in Kansas today. Kansas had a jail inspection regime and abolished it: K.S.A. 75-5227 and 75-5228 were both enacted in the 1973 corrections reorganization (L. 1973, ch. 339, secs. 36 and 37) and both were repealed in 1996 — 75-5228 by L. 1996, ch. 136, sec. 1, effective April 11, 1996, and 75-5227 by L. 1996, ch. 55, sec. 1, effective July 1, 1996. The repeal is corroborated by the only scholarly treatment located, Melanie K. Worsely and Amy Memmer, "Transparency Behind Bars: A History of Kansas Jail Inspections, Current Practices, and Possible Reform," 1 Journal of Criminal Justice and Law, iss. 2, art. 1 (2017), whose abstract states that the article "traces the history of Kansas's jail inspection policy, beginning with passage of the state's 1973 jail inspection statute" and discusses "its repeal in 1996." Nothing replaced it. The Kansas Department of Corrections' public website has no county jail program, page or dataset of any kind — its navigation covers only state facilities, reentry, victim services, the Prisoner Review Board, community and field services, and juvenile services — and K.S.A. 75-5294, the only surviving Chapter 75 provision about the Secretary's assistance to counties, is limited to "consultation and technical assistance to counties and corrections advisory boards" on community corrections comprehensive plans and does not mention jails. The Kansas Sheriffs' Association does not fill the gap either: its public site describes its focus as legislation, scholarships and law enforcement training, and shows no jail standards, jail inspection or jail accreditation program — unlike, for example, the Idaho Sheriffs' Association. Finally, the Kansas Office of the Revisor of Statutes' own subject index to the Kansas Statutes contains no entry for jail inspection or jail standards anywhere under "JAILS." |
| Kentucky | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Louisiana | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Maine | yes | yes | partial | Maine Department of Corrections, Office of the Commissioner |
| Maryland | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Massachusetts | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Michigan | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Minnesota | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Mississippi | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Missouri | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Montana | not established | yes | no | No state agency with a clear statutory mandate to inspect adult county jails was identified in primary sources reviewed. The Montana Board of Crime Control (MBCC) administers 'Montana Jail Standards' and conducts compliance monitoring visits tied to the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (i.e., checking that juveniles are not held in adult jails beyond time limits), not a general adult-jail inspection program. The Montana Jail Standards document itself describes facility self-inspection ('the facility administrator or designee inspects and reviews operations...at least annually') plus separate local fire-code and sanitation inspections, not a single external inspecting authority. The Department of Corrections' statutory powers (MCA 53-1-203) do not include county jail inspection. |
| Nebraska | yes | yes | partial | The Nebraska Jail Standards Board is real and is created by Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,124, which places the board 'within the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice' (the Nebraska Crime Commission) for administrative and budgetary purposes. The board has 12 members: the Director of Correctional Services (or designee), the State Fire Marshal (or designee), and ten members appointed by the Governor from lists submitted by county officials, sheriffs, bar associations and police organizations. The board writes the standards; the actual inspecting is done by Crime Commission staff — the Jail Standards Division — because Neb. Rev. Stat. 83-4,131 assigns inspection to 'personnel of the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.' |
| Nevada | not established | not established | not established | — |
| New Hampshire | yes | yes | no | County commissioners of each county; reports filed with the New Hampshire Attorney General |
| New Jersey | not established | not established | not established | — |
| New Mexico | no | no | no | No state agency currently has mandatory statewide authority to inspect adult county jails. The New Mexico Association of Counties (NMAC), with support from the New Mexico Municipal League, administers a voluntary 'NM Government Accreditation Program – Adult Detention Services,' overseen by its own Accreditation Council; county jails may seek accreditation but are not required to. |
| New York | not established | not established | not established | — |
| North Carolina | not established | not established | not established | — |
| North Dakota | yes | partial | no | North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DOCR), acting through its Office of Facility Inspections within the Division of Transitional Facilities. The office is small and named in the reports themselves: Joe Charvat, Chief of Facility Inspections, and Steven Hall, Jail Inspector, signed the 2025 and 2026 inspections reviewed here. This is a real state regulator with real teeth, not a sheriffs'-association peer-review program: it writes the binding standards, grades every facility, inspects annually on site, issues orders of noncompliance, can bill the facility for the cost of monitoring, and can order a jail closed. |
| Northern Mariana Islands | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Ohio | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Oklahoma | yes | not established | no | Oklahoma State Department of Health |
| Oregon | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Pennsylvania | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Puerto Rico | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Rhode Island | no | yes | no | — |
| South Carolina | not established | not established | not established | — |
| South Dakota | no | partial | no | No state agency has authority, mandatory or otherwise, to inspect adult county jails in South Dakota. SDCL ch. 24-11, the jails chapter, contains no inspection section at all — the closest thing in the entire chapter is a judicial power, SDCL 24-11-27: "The judge of the circuit court may visit, inspect, and supervise all the jails in his circuit and all county and municipal officers shall comply with the orders of such court relating to jails or inmates therein, in accordance with law and the policies and procedures provided for in §24-11-23, and the violation of any such order may be punished as a contempt of court." That is a discretionary power of an individual elected judge ("may visit"), not a program: no cadence, no written report, no standards to inspect against beyond the jail's own locally adopted policies, no publication, and nothing that produces a record anyone can request as a matter of course. The Department of Corrections is not a jail regulator. Its statutory scope, SDCL 1-15-1.4, is "the juvenile corrections programs established subject to §26-11A-1, the state penitentiary, and other state correctional facilities, parole services, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and such other agencies as may be created by statute, executive order, and administrative action and placed under the Department of Corrections" — county jails are not in that list. Its rulemaking power, SDCL 1-15-20, is confined to inmate contact, release-date calculation, parole supervision, federal and out-of-state inmates housed in STATE correctional facilities, and inmate accounts. DOC's one statutory point of contact with county jails is narrow and federally driven, and the statute says so on its face: SDCL 24-11-16 requires the sheriff to exhibit the jail records "to any judge of the circuit court, if requested to do so, and to the Department of Corrections for the purposes on monitoring compliance with the requirements of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act pursuant to §1-15-28" [sic in original]. SDCL 1-15-28 in turn makes DOC responsible, through the Council of Juvenile Services, for the state plan under the federal formula grants program and for ensuring "compliance with Sections 223(a)(12), (13), and (14) of the Act" — the jail-removal and sight-and-sound separation provisions about juveniles held in adult jails. That is a juvenile-compliance monitoring function attached to federal grant eligibility, not an adult jail inspection. Consistent with this, the DOC's published policy index contains no county jail, jail inspection or jail standards policy. |
| Tennessee | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Texas | yes | yes | partial | Texas Commission on Jail Standards |
| U.S. Virgin Islands | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Utah | yes | yes | yes | Jail operations are largely governed by Utah Sheriffs' Association jail standards (developed with outside counsel, not a state regulatory body); separately, the Utah Department of Corrections (UDC) has historically conducted fire/life/safety inspections and security reviews of county jails that hold state inmates under contract, though a 2008 legislative audit found this UDC oversight fragmented and recommended dedicated contract monitors. |
| Vermont | yes | yes | yes | Prisoners' Rights Office, Office of the Defender General |
| Virginia | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Washington | not established | not established | not established | — |
| West Virginia | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Wisconsin | not established | not established | not established | — |
| Wyoming | no | not established | no | — |
18 of 56 jurisdictions established. The rest are marked “not established” because we have not read the statute yet — not because the answer is no.
A “yes” in the middle column is not the finish line. Texas has the strongest death-reporting law in the country — and the public copy of its custodial death list was last refreshed in August 2025. They keep count. They just stopped reporting it.