The Detention Center
Benton County Jail
- Operated byBenton County Sheriff's Office
- OpenedApril 1999
- Size and capacity100,355 square feet, 'a capacity for 669 inmates'
- Cost and funding$16.8 million, 'funded by a half-cent county jail tax'
- DesignPods for maximum and minimum security, a dormitory housing unit and barracks for work-release inmates; direct/indirect supervision; designed under former Sheriff Andy Lee
- Commissary and phonesCommissary deposits through Keefe Commissary (866-345-1884) and phone deposits through Correct Solutions (877-618-3516), also at a lobby kiosk 7 a.m.-11 p.m.; 'All inmate calls are prepaid'; no rates published
- Juvenile detention (separate)County Juvenile Detention Center, JDC Director Holly Foster, 1301 SW Melissa Dr., Suite 1, Bentonville
- What was triedSheriff's jail/detention, fund-an-inmate's-account and record-division pages and the county home and office-directory pages were opened. The sheriff's home, jail dashboard and contact pages, the county quorum-court page and a 2017 quorum court minutes PDF returned 403; the sheriff's inmate-visitation and inmate-services pages looped between http and https and could not be read. The county home page shows 'View Budgets' and a Quorum Court calendar but its link targets could not be read
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male and Female; capacity 669; jail phone (479) 271-1008 ext. 3602; jail administrator Robert Bersi. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/benton-county-sheriff/
Source: Benton County Sheriff's Office - Jail/Detention · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗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 built1999 (operational since April 1999)
- Original cost$16.8 million
- Paid for byHalf-cent county jail tax, per the sheriff's jail page
- Beds669
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Shawn Holloway
- Runs the jailYes - the Benton County Jail page sits on the sheriff's office site (sheriff.bentoncountyar.gov)
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff, four-year term (Ark. Const. art. 7, § 46; Amendment 95)
- Statutory basisA.C.A. § 12-41-502 gives the county sheriff the custody, rule, and charge of the jail and all prisoners committed in the county
- Name as published'Sheriff Shawn Holloway' in the county government's office directory
- Office1300 SW 14th St., Bentonville, AR 72712; 479-271-1008
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Shawn Holloway ('Elected in 2015'); office 1300 South West 14th, Bentonville, AR 72712, phone (479) 271-1008 ext 3617. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/benton-county-sheriff/
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Benton County Government - Office Directory · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Arkansas circuit judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms; the governor fills a mid-term vacancy by appointment until the next general election. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. Under Ark. R. Crim. P. 8.1 an arrested person goes before a judicial officer without unnecessary delay; depending on the court, that may be a circuit judge or a magistrate. Arkansas's "county judge" is the county's chief executive, not a judicial officer, and does not set bail. No page opened names the county's judicial circuit or a judge.
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 2026-09-18
The County Judge and Quorum Court
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- County judgeBarry Moehring — the county’s chief executive, not a judicial officer; named in the Association of Arkansas Counties directory, checked 2026-09-18
- What they controlThe county judge and quorum court fund and build the jail: the detention budget, the building itself, and any dedicated jail sales tax.
- What they don'tCustody of the jail. Under A.C.A. § 12-41-502 the elected sheriff has “the custody, rule, and charge” of the jail and its prisoners.
- The quorum courtQuorum court page →
Notes on the record
- Benton County, Arkansas publishes on bentoncountyar.gov and the sheriff's subdomain sheriff.bentoncountyar.gov; both are first-party. Several pages on both returned 403 to automated fetches, so the record is partial.
- The jail page names the Benton County Jail and publishes capacity (669), year, cost and funding. The capacity check is recorded as no because no daily population could be read: the sheriff's 'Jail Dashboard' page exists but returned 403, so it is unexamined rather than confirmed absent.
- The funding sentence is the sheriff's own: $16.8 million 'funded by a half-cent county jail tax'.
- No roster could be opened: the search returned a roster/locator page (inmate-visitation.html) that redirected in a loop. The roster check is recorded as no on what could be read, not as confirmed absent.
- Commissary and phone vendors are published without rates, so fees is no. No bond guidance, PREA material, housing contract, in-custody death or inspection report was found on the pages that opened.
- Budget and minutes are unexamined: the county home page shows a 'View Budgets' link and a quorum court calendar, but the targets could not be read and the quorum court page returned 403.
- County seat recorded as Bentonville from the county office directory, which places the County Judge, comptroller and sheriff in Bentonville; the page does not use the words 'county seat'.
- Every page cited is Benton County, Arkansas (Bentonville, AR addresses), not Benton County, Missouri. Commercial inmate-lookup sites in the first search (bentoncountyjail.org, bentonjailroster.org, countyjailroster.net, arkansasjailroster.com, arkansassheriffsassociation.com, govbackgroundchecks.com, bentonvillecityjailar.org) are not cited.
- Arkansas law requires each county jail to be inspected at least annually by a governor-appointed district criminal detention facility review committee (A.C.A. § 12-26-107), against mandatory state minimum standards. The written report goes to the district's administrative judge and to the county judge; state law does not require it to be published, and no public state repository of the reports was located.
- Arkansas form: County Judge Barry Moehring (chief executive), 215 E. Central Ave., Bentonville, 479-271-1000, named on the county home page and office directory; Comptroller Deborah L. Fischer. The Quorum Court is the legislative body; the county home page lists a Quorum Court meeting on 28 May 2026, but the quorum court page returned 403, so no justice of the peace is named and no minutes were read.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Benton 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 who runs this jail is elected. So are the justices of the peace on the quorum court who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered