The Detention Center
Clay County Jail and Detention Center
- Operated byClay County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address268 South 2nd Ave., Piggott, Arkansas 72454 - the jail is in Piggott, not Corning (sheriff's jail page)
- Who is held'All person who are arrested and taken into custody are transported to the Detention Center for booking and incarceration'
- AdministratorJail Administrator Justice Midkiff (sheriff's staff), who also handles FOIA requests for the office
- StandardsThe sheriff's jail page says the facility operates under Arkansas Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee guidelines; no inspection report is published
- OperationsFull kitchen on site; jailers complete at least 40 hours of state-approved training
- CommissaryFAQ says there are 'many ways to send money and commissary to inmates'; no rates or vendors' prices published
- Beds and daily populationNot published on the pages opened. The Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory (not a county source) lists a 69-bed facility for male and female detainees
- What was triedOne domain-scoped search returned the sheriff's pages. Jail, FAQ and administration pages were opened. The inmate roster, home and press pages returned fetch errors (robots.txt / DNS failure), so the roster could not be confirmed. An earlier fetch of claycountysheriffar.org was refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED). claycountysheriff.org is the Clay County, ALABAMA sheriff and is excluded; claycountydetention.com returned a redirect loop and its state was not confirmed. No Clay County, Arkansas government site was found
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 69; jail phone (870) 598-2270. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/clay-county-sherif/
Source: Clay County Sheriff's Office (Piggott, AR) - Jail · 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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Ronnie Cole
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the Clay County Jail and Detention Center (sheriff's jail page)
- 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 Clay County Sheriff by the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory, which states he was elected in 2023. The sheriff's own jail, FAQ and administration pages that could be opened do not print the sheriff's name, and the home page could not be read
- Office address268 South 2nd Ave., Piggott, Arkansas 72454; (870) 598-2270, 24 hours (sheriff's administration page)
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Ronnie Cole ('Elected in 2023'); office 268 South 2nd Street, Piggot, AR 72454, phone 870-598-2270. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/clay-county-sherif/
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Arkansas Sheriffs' Association - Clay 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.
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 judgeMike Patterson — 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
- Confirmed Clay County, ARKANSAS: the sheriff's own domain claycountysheriffar.org gives a Piggott, Arkansas address. Clay County, Alabama (claycountysheriff.org) and Clay County, Missouri are different counties and nothing from them is used.
- Clay County has two county seats, Corning and Piggott, per the project's Arkansas state layer; no county page confirming both could be opened, so seat_source is blank. The sheriff's own jail page places the Clay County Jail and Detention Center at 268 South 2nd Ave., Piggott.
- The sheriff's site was read in part (jail, FAQ, administration). It names the jail, so named is met. The inmate roster page appeared in search under the sheriff's domain but failed to load, so roster is recorded as no rather than yes - it is unconfirmed, not confirmed absent.
- No beds, population, bond guidance, fees, PREA audit, housing contract, death in custody or budget was found on the pages opened. The jail page's statement that it operates under Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee guidelines is not an inspection result.
- The sheriff's name comes from the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory (elected 2023); the sheriff's pages that loaded do not print it. The 69-bed figure is also from that directory and is not counted as county publishing.
- Jail Administrator Justice Midkiff is sheriff's staff; the elected sheriff remains the jailer, so jail_administrator is null.
- No county government site was found, so quorum court minutes and agenda packets were not examined; budget and inspections are no on the sheriff's site only.
- Search results were otherwise dominated by commercial inmate-lookup sites; 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.
- Two county seats. The Association of Arkansas Counties page for this county lists the Piggott courthouse first, as the main seat, and the Corning courthouse second (checked 18 September 2026).
- 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 Clay County, Arkansas government site was found or opened, so no County Judge or justice of the peace is named and no minutes or agendas were examined.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clay 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