The Detention Center
Escambia County Jail
- Operated byEscambia County Sheriff's Office
- Other name usedThe roster page calls it the Escambia County Detention Center
- Sheriff's office address (roster page)316 Court Street, Brewton, AL 36426
- Who it holdsPre-trial, sentenced, and holds for other agencies (jail page)
Source: Escambia County Sheriff's Office — Jail · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗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
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 Heath Jackson
- CurrentNamed on the sheriff's own site
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's site runs the jail page and inmate roster; by law the sheriff has legal custody of the county jail (Ala. Code 14-6-1)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Escambia County Sheriff's Office (Alabama) · 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 Escambia County
- Circuit Court: Alabama's Twenty-First Judicial Circuit, which serves Escambia County alone. Circuit judges are elected circuit-wide to six-year terms and try felony cases.
- District Court: the Escambia County District Court. District judges are elected countywide to six-year terms; a district judge or magistrate usually sets bail soon after arrest.
- 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.
- NoteThe county home page says the county is governed by an elected five-member commission; agendas/minutes page not opened.
- The boardEscambia County Commission
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Examined in the rescue pass (29 Sep 2026) on the sheriff's own site escambiacountysheriffal.org (confirmed Escambia County, Alabama; Brewton). Opened: home page, Jail page, roster-choose page and current-inmate roster.
- The Jail page names the Escambia County Jail and says it holds pre-trial, sentenced and other-agency prisoners; it gives no address, beds, visitation, phone, commissary, bond, PREA, inspection or death information.
- The roster lists people in custody now with booking date, charges and bond amount, plus a released-in-48-hours list. Bond amounts per person are not guidance on how to post bond.
- The roster shows a count of '(375)' but also '10 per page, page 1 of 7'; the figure is unclear, so no population is recorded.
- The full site menu read from the Jail page shows no PREA, visitation, commissary, fee, policy or budget page. Harvested sub-pages (site-map, command-staff, history) were refused by our reader.
- Budget 'no' is qualified: the county site escambiacountyal.gov opened (seat Brewton; elected five-member commission) but our reader again returned no link URLs, so its commission, minutes or budget pages could not be opened.
- What was tried: first pass — escambiacountyal.gov home only. Rescue pass — one search; sheriff pages above (opened); site-map, command-staff, history-of-the-sheriff's-office (refused); escambiacountyal.gov (home only, no links).
- 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 Escambia 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