The Detention Center
Prowers County Jail
- Operated byProwers County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address103 East Oak Street, Lamar, CO 81052
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Randy Morris
- Assistant Jail AdministratorSenior Sergeant Ron Manly
- Housing layoutThree pods — minimum/medium security, maximum security, and a female pod with minimum-through-maximum cells
- Detention staffing4 sergeants, 12 detention officers and 1 courthouse security deputy on twelve-hour shifts; minimum of three staff on site at all times
- Contracted servicesFood service contracted to Consolidated Foods; medical care contracted
- Visitation platformHomeWAV, support line 1-844-394-6639
- Beds / capacityNot published on the county site
Source: Prowers County Sheriff — Detention · checked 2026-08-24
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 Sam Zordel
- Runs the jailYes — the Prowers County Sheriff's Office operates the Prowers County Jail
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff
- UndersheriffSam Fief
- Sheriff's office address103 East Oak Street, Lamar, CO 81052
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Prowers County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Colorado judges are appointed through a judicial nominating commission and then face retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. County court judges typically set bond at first appearance. The 15th Judicial District covers Baca, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Prowers counties.
15th Judicial District Court — Chief Judge
- Tarryn L. Johnson
15th Judicial District Court — District Judge
- Mike Davidson
Prowers County Court — County Court Judge
- Lane Porter
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Prowers County runs its own jail and names it, gives the address, names the jail administrator and describes the pod layout and detention staffing, but publishes no bed count or daily population.
- The county site has a Meeting Archive and Meeting Calendar for the Board of County Commissioners but no dedicated budget or finance page was found in the main navigation, so the budget check is 'no'. URLs checked: https://www.prowersco.gov/ and https://www.prowersco.gov/departments/commissioners.
- Visitation runs through HomeWAV, but no phone, video-visit or commissary rate schedule is published on the county site, so the fees check is 'no'.
- No inmate roster, bond-posting guidance, PREA audit, inspection result, death-in-custody report or inmate-housing contract with rates was found. URLs checked: https://www.prowersco.gov/departments/sheriff, https://www.prowersco.gov/departments/sheriff/detention, https://www.prowersco.gov/departments/sheriff/detention_operations.php (403), https://www.prowerscounty.net/departments/sheriff/detention.php.
- Colorado's statewide Jail Data Dashboard (https://ors.colorado.gov/ors-jaildata) collects quarterly population and death data under CRS 17-26-118, but that is state publishing and does not satisfy the county-site checks.
- Board of County Commissioners, 301 South Main Street, Suite 215, Lamar, CO 81052 — District 1 Ty Harmon, District 2 Ron Cook, District 3 Roger Stagner. No dedicated detention tax or sales-tax levy was found published on the county site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Prowers 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 commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered