The Detention Center
Not scored. The county's own website was not reachable in the session that produced this record, so its disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.
- Operated byLonoke County Sheriff's Office
- JailThe sheriff's office publishes an in-custody roster headed 'Lonoke County Sheriffs Office Jail Roster' on the vendor platform myr2m.com; it showed 143 people in custody on 18 September 2026
- Capacity (secondary)150 inmates, male and female, per the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory - not a county publication
- Jail administrator (staff)William Shipp, per the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory; answers to the sheriff
- What was triedThe sheriff's own site lonokeso.com (Detention page) failed to resolve and was not retried. No Lonoke County government domain or quorum court page appeared in search. Commercial inmate-lookup sites (lonokecountyjailar.org, lonokejailroster.org, countyjailroster.net, arkansassheriffsassociation.com, arkansascourtrecords.us) were not used
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 150; jail phone (501) 676-3001; jail administrator William Shipp. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/lonoke-county/
Source: Lonoke County Sheriffs Office - Jail Roster (myr2m.com) · 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 John Staley
- Runs the jailYes - the elected sheriff is the jailer under state law; the sheriff's office publishes a jail roster through its roster vendor
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff, four-year term (Ark. Const. art. 7, § 46; Amendment 95)
- 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
- Tenure publishedThe Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory lists him as Lonoke County Sheriff, elected 2013, and as the Association board's Immediate Past President
- Office address440 Dee Dee Lane, Lonoke, AR 72086 (per the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory)
- Source caveatName taken from the state sheriffs' association directory, not a county page; the sheriff's own site could not be opened
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists John Staley ('Elected in 2013'); office 440 Dee Dee Lane, Lonoke, AR 72086, phone (501) 676-3001. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/lonoke-county/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Arkansas Sheriffs' Association - Lonoke 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 court or county page naming the circuit number or a judge was opened for this county.
- 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 judgeDoug Erwin — 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
- Checks left empty: the sheriff's own site (lonokeso.com) failed to resolve and no Lonoke County government domain was found, so no first-party county or sheriff page was examined. This county is unexamined, not scored as closed.
- The only sheriff-published material opened was the in-custody roster on the vendor platform myr2m.com, which is headed as the Lonoke County Sheriff's Office roster but is not on the county's or sheriff's own domain.
- The Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory lists a 150-inmate capacity and names the jail administrator; that is a secondary source and is not counted toward any check.
- Search results were 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.
- A.C.A. § 12-12-315 requires notice of a death in jail custody to 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.
- Arkansas form: an elected County Judge (the chief executive, not a judicial officer) and a Quorum Court (the legislative body), which hold funding and construction authority for the jail. No Lonoke County government page could be found or opened, so no County Judge or justice of the peace is named.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Lonoke 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