The Detention Center
Van Buren County Detention Center
- Operated byVan Buren County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address184 Detention Drive, P.O. Box 451, Clinton, Arkansas 72031
- Jail administratorPaul Maddox, Jail Administrator (answers to the sheriff; listed on the sheriff's administration page)
- RosterThe sheriff's roster page links a current-inmate list and a 48-hour release list hosted on an outside vendor's domain (myr2m.com), not the sheriff's own
- Beds published by the countyNot published on the sheriff's or county's own pages
- What was triedSheriff's home, detention center, administration, history and inmate-roster pages; county home, officials, quorum court, transparency and minutes-library pages. The minutes library loads by script and showed no documents. County budget PDFs listed on the transparency page (BudgetDetailDec2024.pdf, Budget-Summary-Feb-2024.pdf) returned HTTP 429 on every attempt and were not read.
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 52; jail phone (501) 745-2112; jail administrator Paul Maddox. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/van-buren-county/
Source: Van Buren County Sheriff's Office - Detention Center · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Eric Koonce
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the Van Buren 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 gives the county sheriff the custody, rule, and charge of the jail and all prisoners committed in the county
- Tenure publishedThe sheriff's own history page lists Sheriff Eric Koonce, "Term: 2023 - current"
- Also listed by the countyThe county's officials page lists Eric Koonce, County Sheriff
- Office line501-745-2112
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Eric Koonce ('Elected in 2023'); office 184 Detention Drive, Clinton, AR 72031, phone (501) 745-2112. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/van-buren-county/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Van Buren County Sheriff's Office - History of the Sheriff's Office · 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 own pages that were opened name no circuit number and no judge, so none is recorded.
- 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 judgeDale James — 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
- 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.
- The sheriff runs his own domain, vbcso.com, separate from the county's vanburencountyar.gov. Both are first-party and both were read.
- The roster check is recorded as no on a strict reading: the sheriff's roster page links a current-inmate list, but the list itself sits on an outside vendor's domain (myr2m.com). That vendor page was opened and did identify itself as the Van Buren County Sheriffs Office roster.
- The budget check is recorded as no only because the county's budget PDFs could not be read (HTTP 429 on every attempt); the county's transparency page does list monthly and annual budget summaries and details, so a detention line may exist in them.
- The sheriff's home page links circuit felony fine payments through an outside payment portal; no guidance on posting bail was found, so bond_info is no. No beds, population, PREA audit, housing contract, in-custody death, fees or inspection report was found.
- The minutes library loads its documents by script and showed none to the fetch, so no quorum court minutes could be searched for a detention facility inspection report.
- Search results for this county were dominated by commercial inmate-lookup sites and a Van Buren city (Crawford County) jail site; none were used.
- County Judge and Quorum Court, the Arkansas form. The county's officials page lists Dale James, County Judge, and nine justices of the peace: Robbia Mayes (District 1), Nickie Brown (District 2), Sarah Brown (District 3), Paul Wellenberger (District 4), Mike Bradford (District 5), Bailee Roberson (District 6), Becky Page (District 7), Virgil Lemings (District 8) and Ester Bass (District 9). The quorum court page states it meets on the third Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. at the Courthouse Annex, 1414 Highway 65 South, Clinton. The county publishes budgets, court orders and ordinances on its transparency page.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Van Buren 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