The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byMarion County Sheriff's Office
- Sheriff's office address842 Industrial Dr., Hamilton, AL 35570 (also shown on the roster page)
- Jail AdministratorDawn Dodd, Jail Administrator (sheriff's Administration page)
Source: Marion County Sheriff's Office, Alabama · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
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 Kevin Williams
- CurrentNamed on the sheriff's own Administration page
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's office lists a Jail Administrator and runs the 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
- Office address842 Industrial Dr., Hamilton, AL 35570
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Marion County Sheriff's Office, Alabama — Administration · 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 Marion County
- Circuit Court: Alabama's Twenty-Fifth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Winston. Circuit judges are elected circuit-wide to six-year terms and try felony cases.
- District Court: the Marion 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.
- NoteCounty site not opened.
- The boardMarion County Commission
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Rescue pass (29 Sep 2026): search found the sheriff's own site marionsoal.com (confirmed Marion County, Alabama; Hamilton). Opened: home page (full link list), Administration, Contact, and the Inmate Roster search.
- Administration page names Sheriff Kevin Williams, Chief Deputy William Pendley and Jail Administrator Dawn Dodd.
- The Inmate Roster is public (photo, booking number, booking date, charges, bond amount, release date). It shows a total of 423 but also a release-date column, so it may include people already released; no population is recorded.
- The site menu has a Jail page, FAQs and Public Information page, but all three were refused by our reader. Because the Jail page could not be read, the ten checks are not scored — the roster is a confirmed 'yes' to carry into a later pass.
- No county-commission site appeared in the results.
- What was tried: first pass — marioncountyal.gov (refused), marionso.org (does not resolve). Rescue pass — one search; marionsoal.com home, administration, contact, inmate-roster/search (opened); jail, faqs, public-information (refused).
- 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 Marion 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