The Detention Center
Monroe County Detention Facility
- Operated byMonroe County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address200 South Main Street, Clarendon, AR 72029
- Beds40, published by the sheriff's office
- Who is heldAdult male inmates - pre-trial detainees and sentenced inmates awaiting transfer to the Arkansas Department of Correction
- BuiltConstruction began 1987, completed 1988
- Jail administrator (staff)Gloria Hunter, answering to the sheriff
- Also housesThe county's primary dispatch and communications center
- VisitationDaily 1-3 pm, 20 minutes per inmate, up to 5 visitors on a list; photo ID; scheduled through NCIC.com
- CommissaryAvailable; money accepted by money order only; no prices published
- RosterThe sheriff's roster page offers current inmates and 48-hour releases, but the current roster displayed 'Inmate Roster (0)' with no entries when opened on 18 September 2026
- Daily populationNot published
- What was triedSheriff's home, Jail, Quorum Court, inmate-roster, roster.php and mobile roster pages opened. No separate Monroe County government domain appeared in search; monroecounty.gov (a roster PDF) belongs to Monroe County, New York and was not used. Commercial lookup sites (arkansassheriffsassociation.com, govbackgroundchecks.com) were not used
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 34; jail phone (870) 747-3623; jail administrator Gloria Hunter. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/monroe-county-sheriff/
Source: Monroe County Sheriff AR - Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓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 built1988 (construction began 1987)
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds40
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Michael Neal
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the Monroe County Detention Facility, which holds the county's own prisoners
- 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
- Office address200 South Main Street, Clarendon, AR 72029
- Office line870-747-3811 (24-hour non-emergency)
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Michael K. Neal ('Elected in 2015'); office 200 South Main, Clarendon, AR 72029, phone (870) 747-3811. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/monroe-county-sheriff/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Monroe County Sheriff AR - home page · 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 the circuit number or a judge.
- 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 judgeP.K. Norman — 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
- The sheriff's own domain, monroecountysheriffar.com, is first-party and identifies Clarendon, Arkansas throughout. Monroe County, Missouri and monroecounty.gov (Monroe County, New York) were set aside.
- Capacity is recorded as met on beds alone (40); no daily population is published.
- Roster is recorded as no: a current-inmate roster is published on the sheriff's domain, but it showed zero entries with no explanation when opened, so it could not be confirmed as a working list of who is in custody.
- Fees is no: commissary exists but no phone, video or commissary rates are published. No bond guidance, PREA audit, boarding contract, budget or death in custody was found.
- No quorum court minutes or agendas were found, so no inspection report could be looked for in them.
- 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: the County Judge (the county's chief executive, not a judicial officer) presides over the Quorum Court without a vote but with a veto that a three-fifths majority can override. The Quorum Court has nine justices of the peace elected from districts for two-year terms and meets monthly. This description is published on a Quorum Court page hosted on the sheriff's site; it names neither the County Judge nor the justices and links no minutes or agendas.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Monroe 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