Autauga County, Alabama — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Metro Jail

Operated byAutauga County Sheriff's Department
Jail addressNot found (Sheriff's Department main office: 162 West Fourth Street, Prattville, AL 36067-3049)
Rated capacityNot found
Jail budget$3,838,577.40 (FY2025-26 approved county budget)

Source: Autauga County — Sheriff's Department contact information · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

Not scored. Autauga County's and its sheriff's own websites could not be reached or read in the session that produced this record, so their disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.

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 found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Mark Harrell

Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Department lists the Metro Jail and a Jail Warden among its units (Ala. Code 14-6-1)
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
Office162 W. 4th Street, Prattville, AL 36067

Still needed

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

Source: Autauga County — Elected Officials · checked 2026-09-29

The Judges

Alabama's circuit and district judges are elected state judges. A district judge or magistrate usually sets bail soon after arrest; felony cases are tried in circuit court.

Who sets bail in Autauga County

Circuit Court: Alabama's Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Chilton and Elmore. Circuit judges are elected circuit-wide to six-year terms and try felony cases.
District Court: the Autauga County District Court. District judges are elected countywide to six-year terms; a district judge or magistrate usually sets bail soon after arrest.

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 2026-09-29

The County Commission

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe county budget that funds the sheriff's office and the jail, and the jail building itself.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations. By law the sheriff has legal custody and charge of the jail and everyone held in it (Ala. Code 14-6-1). No state agency sets and enforces standards for the jail.
NoteFY2025-26 approved budget: Sheriff's Office $5,335,994.10; Jail $3,838,577.40.
The boardAutauga County Commission →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Official county site is autaugaco.org; it links to the sheriff's site autaugasheriff.org. Both confirmed Alabama.
County names the 'Metro Jail' only as a phone-directory entry (with a Jail Warden line, no name). No jail page, capacity, bond, fee, PREA or inspection material found on the county site.
County posts approved budgets; FY2025-26 shows separate Sheriff's Office and Jail lines.
Sheriff's site autaugasheriff.org opened but our reader could not see its links (the menu did not come through), so its sub-pages (roster, jail, bonds) were not examined; roster and fees are unverified rather than confirmed absent.
autaugaal.org came up in search and has 'Jail' and 'Inmate Roster' pages, but it states it is NOT an official county website — ignored.
What was tried: guessed domains autaugacountyal.gov, autaugacountysheriff.com, autaugaso.org (do not resolve); autaugacountysheriff.org, autaugacountyal.org, autaugacounty.org (refused). Searches used for this county: 1.
Not scored: Sheriff's site autaugasheriff.org opened but its menu/links were unreadable, so its roster, jail and bond pages were never examined. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: named, budget.
State inspection/oversight: Alabama has no state agency that sets and enforces standards for county jails. The law that once gave a state agency jail-inspection duties was repealed in 2015.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Autauga 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 is elected — every Alabama sheriff's seat is on the November 2026 ballot. So are the commissioners who pay for the jail, and the judges who set bail.

Names verified 2026-09-29 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered