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 byScott County Sheriff's Office
- Jail (association directory)Capacity 72; holds male and female; jail phone (479) 637-4155; Jail Administrator Shane Davis; Chief Deputy Billy Carnahan - all per the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory, not a county publication
- Published nameNo jail name was found on any page opened
- What was triedOne WebSearch returned no Scott County, Arkansas government or sheriff domain. scottcountyso.org was opened but shows no Arkansas address and describes a 610-square-mile jurisdiction; it was not established to be Scott County, Arkansas and is not cited. scottcountymo.com is Scott County, Missouri and was not opened. arsheriffs.org (the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association) was opened. Commercial or spam results (arkansascountycourt.org, jailexchange.com, arkansassheriffsassociation.com, garlandcountysheriff.com, two stripe.jhu.edu pages) were not opened or cited. arcounties.org/counties/scott/ (Association of Arkansas Counties) was attempted and refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED); not retried.
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 72; jail phone (479) 637-4155; jail administrator Shane Davis. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/scott-county-sheriff/
Source: Arkansas Sheriffs' Association - Scott County Sheriff · 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
- Beds72 (Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory, not a county publication)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Randy Shores
- Runs the jailThe Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directory lists a jail under the Scott County sheriff; no county or sheriff page confirming it could be opened
- 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 shall have the custody, rule, and charge of the jail within the county and all prisoners committed in the county
- Source caveatName taken from the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association's directory page, which states he was elected in 2017; not from a county page. The directory is the association's, not the county's
- Office address100 West 1st St., Waldron, AR 72958; office (479) 637-4156 (per the association directory)
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Randy Shores ('Elected in 2017'); office 100 West 1st St., Waldron, AR 72958, phone (479) 637-4156. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/scott-county-sheriff/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Arkansas Sheriffs' Association - Scott 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 circuit number or judge was confirmed from a page that could be opened.
- 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 judgeBrian K. Jones — 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
- Unexamined county for scoring purposes: no Scott County, Arkansas government domain or sheriff's own domain was found, so audit.checks is left empty rather than scored as ten no entries.
- The sheriff's name, jail capacity (72) and jail administrator (Shane Davis) come from the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association's online directory. That is a statewide association, not the county publishing, so none of it satisfies a transparency check; the sheriff's name should be re-confirmed from a county source.
- scottcountyso.org, a Scott County Sheriff's Department site returned by search, carries no state identification and describes a 610-square-mile jurisdiction; it was not treated as Scott County, Arkansas. Scott County, Missouri was researched last session and nothing from it is used.
- 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 seat from CCCarto's Arkansas county-seat list (https://www.cccarto.com/countyseats/arkansas/), checked 18 September 2026; it names ten two-seat counties, including Franklin (Ozark and Charleston).
- Arkansas form: an elected County Judge (chief executive) and a Quorum Court (legislative body). No Scott County, Arkansas government page was returned by search or opened, so no names are recorded.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Scott 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