The Detention Center
Dallas County Jail (also styled Dallas County Detention Center on the sheriff's home page)
- Operated byDallas County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address106 South Charlotte, Fordyce, AR 71742
- Beds"Currently we have the capacity to hold 125 inmates. We are an all male holding facility."
- CompletedOctober 1999, per the sheriff's jail page
- Female prisonersThe jail holds men only; where women are held is not stated on any page opened
- Jail administrator (sheriff's staff)Kathren Shuler
- Current population on roster114 total shown on the sheriff's vendor-hosted roster when opened on 18 Sept 2026 - near the 125 published capacity
- Phones / videoThrough NCIC Inmate Communications; calls billed per minute with no connection fee (rate not stated); video visits $0.30 per minute
- BondFAQ: release on own recognizance, through a private bonding company, by property bond or by cash bond
- DepositsLobby kiosk, or money order / cashier's check by mail; no fees stated
- What was triedSheriff home, jail, roster, phone/visitation, meet-the-sheriff, administration and FAQ pages, and the vendor roster. /sheriff returned 404. No county-government domain was found in the one search, so no county judge, quorum court, budget or minutes page could be opened.
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male Only; capacity 132; jail phone (870) 352-2002; jail administrator Kathren Schuler. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/dallas-county-sheriff/
Source: Dallas County Sheriff's Office (Arkansas) - Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1999 (completed October 1999, sheriff's jail page)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds125 (all male)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Mike Knoedl
- Runs the jailYes - the Dallas County Sheriff's Office operates the Dallas County Jail
- 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 address106 South Charlotte Street, Fordyce, AR 71742
- Office phone(870) 352-2002
- Chief DeputyMajor Brady Harmon
- State confirmedArkansas - Fordyce, AR address on every sheriff page opened
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Mike Knoedl ('Elected in 2023'); office 106 S Charlotte Street, Fordyce, AR 71742, phone (870) 352-2002. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/dallas-county-sheriff/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Dallas County Sheriff's Office (Arkansas) - Meet the 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.
- 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 Stanfield — 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
- 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 Dallas County, ARKANSAS (Fordyce); every page opened carries a Fordyce, AR address. The Missouri county of the same name was not touched.
- The sheriff's domain is dallascosoar.gov (dallascountyarsheriff.com redirects to it). The roster is hosted for the sheriff by its vendor (myr2m.com/DallasCoRoster), linked from the sheriff's home page and linking back to the sheriff's jail page; it showed 114 inmates on 18 Sept 2026.
- Capacity check met on published capacity (125); the daily population is visible only as the roster total.
- Fees check is no: a video-visit rate ($0.30/min) is published, but no phone per-minute rate or commissary prices are.
- No county-government site was reached, so budget, minutes and any inspection report in quorum court records could not be examined; those checks are no on the sheriff's domain alone.
- Commercial inmate-lookup sites in search results (arkansasprisonroster.org, arkansasinmateroster.org, arkansasjailroster.com, recordsfinder.com) were not used.
- Arkansas county judge (chief executive) and quorum court. The one search for this county returned the sheriff's domain but no county-government domain, so the county judge and quorum court members were not found on any page opened and none are recorded.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Dallas 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