The Detention Center
Crawford County Detention Center
- Operated byCrawford County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address4235 Alma Highway, Van Buren, AR 72956
- Jail phone(479) 474-1721
- Beds"Our facility is certified to house 307 inmates."
- Daily populationNot published as a figure
- Detention supervisorsCaptain V.C. Winters; Lieutenants Samantha Goodwin and Tonya Luangsiyotha (sheriff's detention page)
- Deposits / commissaryDeposits via JailATM; commissary via csgpay.com; no rates published
- RosterLive inmate search at inmates.crawfordcountysheriff.org; last updated 16 July 2026 when opened on 18 Sept 2026
- What was triedSheriff home, detention, inmates and roster pages; county sheriff, county judge, justices of the peace, circuit court and calendar pages. No bond guidance, fees, budget, minutes or agendas found.
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 307; jail phone (479) 222-5479; jail administrator V.C Winters. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/crawford-county-sheriff/
Source: Crawford County Sheriff - Detention · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗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
- Beds307 (certified capacity, sheriff's detention page)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Daniel Perry
- Runs the jailYes - the Crawford County Sheriff's Office operates the Crawford County Detention Center
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff (Ark. Const. art. 7, § 46), four-year term
- Statutory basisA.C.A. § 12-41-502 gives the county sheriff the custody, rule, and charge of the jail within the county and all prisoners committed in the county.
- Office address4235 Alma Highway, Van Buren, Arkansas 72956
- Office phone479-474-2261
- Chief DeputyBrad Wiley (sheriff's home page)
- State confirmedArkansas - Van Buren address on both the county and sheriff domains
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Daniel Perry ('Elected in 2023'); office 4235 Alma Hwy, Van Buren, AR 72956, phone (479) 474-2581. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/crawford-county-sheriff/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Crawford County, Arkansas - 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.
Circuit Court (Crawford County) - Divisions I, II, III
- Marc McCune (Division I)
- Mike Medlock (Division II)
- Candice Settle (Division III)
- 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 judgeChris Keith — 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
- 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.
- This is Crawford County, ARKANSAS (Van Buren) - every page opened carries a Van Buren, AR address; the Missouri county of the same name was not touched.
- The sheriff runs its own domain, crawfordcountysheriff.org, with a roster subdomain; the county's domain is crawfordcountyar.gov. Both are first-party.
- Capacity check met on the published certified capacity of 307; no daily population is published.
- The circuit court page names three divisions and judges but no circuit number, so none is recorded.
- No bond guidance, fee schedule, budget, PREA audit, death in custody, boarding contract or quorum court minutes were found, so no inspection report could be sought in minutes.
- Commercial inmate-lookup sites in search results (arkansasprisons.org, arkansasinmates.org, arkansasjailroster.com and similar) were not used.
- County Judge Chris Keith (the county's chief executive; 300 Main Street, Room 4, Van Buren; page says he is serving his first term; source https://www.crawfordcountyar.gov/officials/county_judge.cshtml) and a 13-member Quorum Court of justices of the peace: Robert Kevin Arnold (D1), Lonnie Myers (D2), Morgan R. Morgan (D3), Lloyd Cole (D4), Brad Martin (D5), Mark Shaffer (D6), Kyle Stinchcomb (D7), Tia Woodruff (D8), Jason Cox (D9), Jayson Peppas (D10), Kevin Bell (D11), Donna Staton (D12), Steve Johnson (D13). No minutes, agendas or budget are linked on the county domain.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Crawford 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