Washington County, Arkansas — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Washington County Detention Center

Operated byWashington County Sheriff's Office
Jail address1155 W. Clydesdale Drive, Fayetteville, AR 72701 (same address as the sheriff's office)
Detention line(479) 444-5830
RosterThe county publishes a Detainee Roster (Detailed), a Detention Intake Report (last three days) and a Detainee Charge Report on its own domain; the pages load their data by script
Population dataThe detention page links a "Washington County Detention Center-Population Summary Data" sheet hosted on Smartsheet; it did not render to the fetch, so no figure is recorded
Bond"There is a kiosk in the lobby of the Washington County Detention Center where all major credit cards are accepted, as well as cash"; the FAQ refers people to the Arkansas Bail Bond Licensing Board for bondsmen
CommissaryFunds via JailATM.com or the lobby kiosk; commissary line (479) 444-5873; no prices published
PhonesOutgoing collect calls from housing; prepaid-minutes provider line 1-877-618-3516; no rates published
VisitationScheduled online at least 24 hours ahead; maximum two adults and two children per visit
PREA2025 PREA Annual Report published: 19 allegations in 2025, 10 unfounded, 9 unsubstantiated, 0 substantiated. The PREA page lists the audit report as "2025 (Not Yet Available)"
What was triedSheriff, detention information, detainee roster, intake report, detention FAQ and PREA pages and the 2025 PREA annual report were opened. County judge, quorum court, site map, budgets and 2026 budget ordinance pages were opened. A guessed quorum court URL (washingtoncountyar.gov/government/quorum-court) was refused with PROVENANCE_REQUIRED and not retried. Two 2023 agenda packets and the agendas-and-minutes archive returned HTTP 403.
Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 710; jail phone (479) 444-5878; jail administrator Major Nolan Ake. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/washington-county-sheriff/

Source: Washington County, AR - Detention Information · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

4/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✓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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Washington County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-18. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byCounty money through the Jail Fund (Fund 3017). The county's 2026 budget ordinance projects Jail Fund revenue including a "Sales Tax Revenue" line of 18,000,000 and prisoner-care payments for boarding other agencies' prisoners: State 2,650,000, Federal 2,375,000, City 165,000. The ordinance opened does not say whether the sales tax is a dedicated jail levy.
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Jay Cantrell

Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the Washington 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
Office address1155 W. Clydesdale Drive, Fayetteville, AR 72701
Main line(479) 444-5700
Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Jay Cantrell ('Elected in 2023'); office 1155 W. Clydesdale Dr., Fayetteville, AR 72701, phone (479) 444-5700. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/washington-county-sheriff/

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Washington County, AR - 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. The county's own pages that were opened name no circuit number and no judge, so none is recorded.

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 judgePatrick Deakins — 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.
Every page used is on the county's own domain, washingtoncountyar.gov, and each identifies Washington County, AR (Fayetteville). This is not the Missouri county of the same name.
The roster check is recorded as yes: the county publishes a detailed detainee roster page, a three-day intake report and a charge report on its own domain. Their data loads by script, so the fetch saw only the page frame and no count is recorded.
The bond_info check is recorded as yes on the detention FAQ, which says bond can be posted at a lobby kiosk by cash or major credit card and points to the Arkansas Bail Bond Licensing Board for bondsmen.
The prea check is recorded as no: the county publishes a 2025 PREA Annual Report (allegation data), which says onsite PREA audits were completed, but its PREA page lists the audit report itself as "2025 (Not Yet Available)" and no audit report was found.
The capacity check is recorded as no: a population summary sheet is linked from the county's detention page but is hosted on Smartsheet and did not render; no beds figure was found on the county's own pages.
The budget check is recorded as yes on the county's 2026 budget ordinance, which publishes Jail Operations and Jail Maintenance appropriations in a Jail Fund.
The contracts check is recorded as no: the 2026 budget projects prisoner-care revenue from state, federal and city sources, which shows the jail boards other agencies' prisoners, but no housing agreement or per-day rate was found on the county's pages. These are boarding payments, not funding of the jail by those governments.
The fees check is no: commissary and phone channels are named but no rates are published. No in-custody death or inspection report was found.
The county seat is recorded as Fayetteville from the county's own site map, which gives the Washington County Courthouse address as 280 N College Ave, Fayetteville, AR 72701; the page does not use the words 'county seat'.
Two quorum court agenda packets from 2023 (15 June and 20 July) and the county's agendas-and-minutes archive page returned HTTP 403, so they could not be searched for a detention facility inspection report. No newer agenda list than July 2023 was found.
County Judge and Quorum Court, the Arkansas form. The county judge page names County Judge Patrick Deakins. The quorum court page lists fifteen justices of the peace: Bradley Bruns (1), David Wilson (2), Robert Massingill (3), Vladimir Rivera Lopez (4), Kyle Lyons (5), Lisa Ecke (6), Charles Dean (7), Shawndra Washington (8), Beth Coger (9), Robert Dennis (10), Suki Highers (11), Evelyn Rios Stafford (12), Willie Leming (13), Gary Ricker (14) and Butch Pond (15). Meetings are live-streamed on the county's YouTube channel; a June 2022 regular meeting page gives the venue as the Washington County Courthouse, 280 N College Ave, Fayetteville. The newest agenda and minutes list opened runs only to a 20 July 2023 agenda packet. The county's 2026 budget ordinance, dated 12/18/2025, sets 2026 appropriations of $27,070,068 for Jail Operations (Fund 3017, Dept 0418) and $2,674,257 for Jail Maintenance (Fund 3017, Dept 1418), up from $25,797,397 and $2,573,552 in the prior column; the Juvenile Detention Center (Fund 1000, Dept 0444) is budgeted separately at $2,306,442.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Washington 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