The first jail was built in La Crosse County in 1858, with countless transitions taking place since then.

In November of 2008, ground was broken for a 29.5 million dollar addition to the 1997 Law Enforcement Center. Jail expansion included a new kitchen, jail garage, booking, master control, two 57-bed direct supervision blocks, increased program space and remodeling of three existing housing blocks along with the medical and receiving holding cell area of the existing jail.  The current Law Enforcement Center has a bed capacity of 244 plus 44 receiving/medical and close supervision cells.

In addition to the change of location and size of the jail, support services and programming have improved drastically and include offerings such as:

            Mental health services,

            High school study and completion,

            Higher education,

            Cognitive behavioral intervention groups,

            Religious services,

            Life skills (such as parenting and personal finance),

            Exercise/recreation,

            Project Proven, and

            Voting While Incarcerated (recently named a model program by the League of Women Voters).

Jail Program Coordinator Mike Kiefer and Clinical Therapist Ben Pfiffner will highlight a number of the individual and group programs currently provided in the La Crosse County Jail.

Additional information regarding the La Crosse County Jail: https://www.lacrossecounty.org/sheriff/sheriff-home/divisions/jail-services