The Detention Center
No county jail
- Operated byChicot County Sheriff's Office (custody); Lake Village city jail and other counties' jails
- JailChicot County runs no county jail (Confirmed by phone with the Chicot County Sheriff's Office, 18 September 2026)
- Where prisoners goThe Lake Village city jail, (870) 265-5055, and the jails of surrounding counties (Confirmed by phone with the Chicot County Sheriff's Office, 18 September 2026)
- What was triedchicotcounty.arkansas.gov/officials and /departments (linked from the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association page and the state portal) both redirect to the state portal page portal.arkansas.gov/counties/chicot/, which lists only the assessor, collector and general courthouse contact. No sheriff's own site for Chicot County, Arkansas appeared in search; every other result was a commercial inmate-lookup site
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: No Jail. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/chicot-county-sheriff/
Source: Arkansas.gov county portal - Chicot County · checked 2026-09-18
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 Ronald Nichols
- Runs the jailNot established from a county page - no page opened describes a Chicot County jail
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff, four-year term
- 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 publishedListed as Chicot County Sheriff by the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory, which states he was elected in 2007 and serves as the association's Board Treasurer; no county page naming the sheriff could be opened
- Office address513 Main Street, Lake Village, AR 71653 (Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory)
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Ronald Nichols ('Elected in 2007'); office 513 Main Street, Lake Village, AR 71653, phone (870) 265-8020. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/chicot-county-sheriff/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Arkansas Sheriffs' Association - Chicot County Sheriff · 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 for this county names its circuit number or a circuit judge.
- 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 judgeTom Mosley — 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 courtNo quorum court page was found on the county's own site
Notes on the record
- Unexamined, not closed: the county's own domain, chicotcounty.arkansas.gov, redirects every page tried to the State of Arkansas portal, and no sheriff's own site for Chicot County, Arkansas was found. With no county-published jail content that could be read, audit.checks is left empty rather than scored ten no's.
- The state portal page (portal.arkansas.gov/counties/chicot/) confirms Lake Village as county seat, but it is state publishing and lists only the assessor and collector; it cannot satisfy any county check.
- The sheriff's name comes from the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory, not a county page. It states Ronald Nichols was elected in 2007 and currently serves as the association's Board Treasurer; a county source would be needed to confirm beyond that.
- No page opened names a Chicot County jail or says where the county's prisoners are held. That is recorded as not found, not as a finding that the county has no jail.
- Search results were dominated by commercial inmate-lookup sites, several styled as other counties' sheriffs; none is cited or counted.
- 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: an elected County Judge (the county's chief executive, not a judicial officer) and a Quorum Court (the legislative body), which hold the jail's funding and construction authority. No page that could be opened names Chicot County's County Judge or justices of the peace, or links quorum court minutes or agendas. The state portal page gives the courthouse at 108 North Main Street, Lake Village, AR 71653, 870-265-8000.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Chicot 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