The Detention Center
Faulkner County Detention Center
- Operated byFaulkner County Sheriff's Office
- Unit OneMaximum security, 118 adult males, 801 Locust St, Conway; 501-450-4995
- Unit TwoBooking/general, 218 males and 88 females, 500 S German Ln, Conway; 501-328-4160
- Juvenile detention16 total capacity
- Jail administrator (sheriff's staff)Captain Doug Hunter
- VisitationUnit Two is video-only, except legal counsel and administrator-approved visits
- Commissary and phonesFunds via Access Corrections (commissary), JailATM.com (messaging, video) and Correct Solutions (phone); no prices published
- Published feesLive Scan fingerprinting $10; proof of incarceration $2 (cash, Unit One only)
- Bond guidanceJudges set bond amounts, the sheriff determines sufficiency; cash, surety, own recognizance and Rule 5.2 pre-trial release described
- Daily populationNot published
- RosterCurrent Inmates and 48 Hour Release lists behind a disclaimer page on fcso.ar.gov
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male, Female & Juvenile / Jail Capacity: Unit 1 = 118, Unit 2 = 306; capacity 490; jail phone (501) 450-4914; jail administrator Doug Hunter. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/faulkner-county-sheriff/
Source: Faulkner County Sheriff's Office - Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byCounty money. The 2026 Faulkner County Budget carries a County Jail department in the County General fund (total $3,151,808.42) and a CJST / County Jail line of $5,205,396.16 in the Criminal Justice Sales Tax fund (3407), alongside Jail Operations & Maintenance, County Detention Facility, Commissary, ARPA revenue-replacement and Capital Improvements jail lines
- Beds118 (Unit One) + 306 (Unit Two: 218 male, 88 female) adult, plus 16 juvenile, as published by the sheriff
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Tim Ryals
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the Faulkner County Detention Center
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff, four-year term (Ark. Const. art. 7, § 46; Amendment 95)
- Statutory basisA.C.A. § 12-41-502: the county sheriff has the custody, rule and charge of the jail within the county and all prisoners committed in the county.
- Tenure publishedThe sheriff's own history page lists Sheriff Tim Ryals as serving 2017 to present
- Also named by the countyThe county's sheriff department page names Sheriff Tim Ryals
- Office address801 Locust Ave., Conway, AR 72034
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Tim Ryals ('Elected in 2017'); office 801 Locust Street, Conway, AR 72034, phone (501) 450-4914. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/faulkner-county-sheriff/
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Faulkner County Sheriff's Office - History · 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 circuit number was confirmed from a page that was opened.
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 judgeAllen Dodson — 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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The sheriff runs his own domain, fcso.ar.gov; the county's is faulknercountyar.gov. Both are first-party and both were read.
- Capacity is recorded as met on published beds alone; no daily population figure is published.
- The fees check is recorded as no: the jail page and FAQ name the commissary, phone and video vendors and publish two administrative fees, but publish no phone, video-visit or commissary rates.
- The contracts check is recorded as no: no boarding agreement with a rate was found. The September 2026 quorum court agenda proposes ordinances establishing a sheriff's 287(g) ICE program fund; the ordinance text was not opened, and no rate is published.
- Budget figures are the department totals printed in the county's 2026 budget PDF. The fund named Criminal Justice Sales Tax carries a County Jail line; the county's own pages opened do not describe the tax's ballot terms, so it is recorded as the budget names it.
- No PREA audit, inspection report or in-custody death was found on either domain. The quorum court's September 2026 agenda and meeting page show no inspection-report item; older minutes were not searched item by item.
- Search results also included commercial inmate-lookup and records sites (faulknercountyjailar.org, faulknercourt.us, faulknercountycourt.us, countysheriffsoffice.org, arkansassheriffsassociation.com and others); 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.
- A.C.A. § 12-12-315 requires anyone with knowledge of a death in jail custody to notify the county coroner, the prosecuting attorney and the sheriff; it is a notification duty to officials, not a public-reporting law, and no public Arkansas list or dataset of jail deaths was located.
- County Judge Allen Dodson (chief executive; 810 Faulkner Street, Conway) and a 13-district Quorum Court: D1 Justice Knight, D2 Maree Coats, D3 John Allison III, D4 Samuel Strain, D5 Jonny Tyler, D6 Tyler Lachowsky, D7 Tyler Pearson, D8 Jason Lyon, D9 Kris Kendrick, D10 vacant, D11 Joyia Yorgey, D12 David Meeks, D13 Jake Moss, all as listed on the county's quorum court page. The court meets the third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at 801 Locust Ave., Conway, and posts journals, agendas and proposed ordinances. The September 2026 agenda carries two proposed ordinances to establish an 'FCSO 287(G) ICE Prog Fund 3416'. Annual budgets 2021-2026 are posted.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Faulkner 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