The Detention Center
White County Detention Center
- Operated byWhite County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address1600 E Booth Suite 100, Searcy, AR 72143
- Jail line501-278-8050
- RosterThe sheriff's Inmate Info page links a current, new and released inmate listing hosted on an outside vendor's domain (correctionsrecordssearch.com)
- Money depositsLobby kiosk or tigerdeposit.com
- PhonesCorrect Solutions, customer care (877) 618-3516, regentpay.com; no rates published
- VisitationScheduled through smartjailmail.com; "one free visit on site per week"
- MailWhite County Detention Center, PO Box 9141, Seminole, FL 33775-9141
- What was triedSheriff's home and Inmate Info pages; county home, sheriff, county judge, quorum court and annual financial info pages; the 2025 and 2026 annual operating budget PDFs, which contain no machine-readable text
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryHolds: Male & Female; capacity 380; jail phone (501) 278-8050; jail administrator Capt. Clayton Edwards. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/white-county-sheriff/
Source: White County Sheriff's Office - Inmate Info · 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 Phillip Miller
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the White 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 site says Sheriff Phillip E. Miller has served in the office since 2001 and became sheriff in 2018
- Also listed by the countyThe county's sheriff page names Sheriff Phillip Miller
- Office address1600 E Booth Suite 100, Searcy, AR 72143; 501-279-6279
- Arkansas Sheriffs' Association directoryLists Phillip E. Miller ('Elected in 2019'); office 1600 E. Booth Rd. Ste 100, Searcy, AR 72143, phone (501) 279-6279. Checked 18 September 2026; an association directory, not a county source - https://arsheriffs.org/sheriffs/white-county-sheriff/
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: White County Sheriff's Office, Arkansas - Home · 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 judgeGeorge Brown — 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
- 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, wcso.cc, separate from the county's whitecounty.ar.gov. Both are first-party and both were read.
- The roster check is recorded as no on a strict reading: the sheriff's Inmate Info page links an inmate listing, but it sits on an outside vendor's domain.
- The budget check is recorded as no only because the budget could not be read: the county publishes annual operating budgets, but the 2025 and 2026 PDFs opened contain no machine-readable text, so no detention appropriation could be confirmed.
- The Inmate Info page names deposit, phone, visitation and mail channels but publishes no bond-posting guidance and no rates, so bond_info and fees are no. No beds, population, PREA audit, housing contract, in-custody death or inspection report was found.
- No quorum court minutes are linked from the county's site, so none could be searched for a detention facility inspection report.
- County Judge and Quorum Court, the Arkansas form. The county's judge page names County Judge Lisa Brown. The quorum court page lists thirteen justices of the peace: Doug Kennedy (1), Bobby Burns (2), Chris Boaz (3), Allen King (4), Jimmy L. House (5), Shane Sellers (6), David H Freppon (7), Charles "Chuck" Lang (8), Mike Cleveland (9), Keith Carlisle (10), Nathan Lincoln (11), Joel "JP" Pritchett (12) and Kenneth Liles (13). The quorum court page links no minutes or agendas. The county publishes annual operating budgets and annual financial reports, 2019-2026, on its financial info page.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in White 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