The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byBanks County Sheriff's Office (Headquarters Bureau, Detention Division)
- Sheriff's office address160 Windmill Farm Road, Homer, GA
- StructureHeadquarters Bureau "responsible for all functions of jail and court operations"; Detention Division sits under it
- Bookings327 inmates booked in Q1 2025 (sheriff's quarterly report)
Source: Banks County Sheriff's Office — Headquarters Bureau · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗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 Carlton Speed
- Runs the jailYes — Georgia sheriffs are the jailers of the counties by law (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Shown onSheriff's own Q1 2025 quarterly jail report names Sheriff Carlton Speed; home page quotes "Sheriff Speed"
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Banks County Sheriff's Office — Quarterly Jail Report Q1 2025 · checked 2026-09-29
The Judges
Georgia's superior court judges are elected state judges who hear felony cases. For most charges a county magistrate sets bail soon after arrest; for the most serious felonies only a superior court judge can.
Who sets bail in Banks County
- Superior Court: the Mountain Judicial Circuit, which also serves Habersham, Rabun and Stephens. Superior court judges are elected circuit-wide in nonpartisan elections to four-year terms and hear felony cases; for the most serious felonies only a superior court judge can set bail.
- Magistrate Court: the Banks County Magistrate Court. For most charges a magistrate sets bail soon after arrest.
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-29
The Board of Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe county budget that funds the sheriff's office and the jail, and the jail building itself. Some small counties have a sole commissioner; consolidated governments such as Athens-Clarke, Augusta-Richmond, Columbus and Macon-Bibb have a commission instead.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. By law the sheriff is the jailer of the county and appoints the other jailers, subject to the governing authority's supervision (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1). No state agency inspects the jail.
- The boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site bankscountysheriff.org opened; confirmed Banks County, Georgia (Homer, GA).
- Opened home, office of the sheriff, organization, headquarters bureau, contact, data, forms, HB 1105 quarterly jail report page and the Q1 2025 report.
- Roster: the sheriff's site links an Inmate Search (Southern Software booking search, AgencyID BanksCoGA); the search itself was refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED).
- Quarterly jail reports (2025 Q1-Q4, 2026 Q1-Q2) are posted under O.C.G.A. 42-4-16; Q1 2025 covers bookings and immigration checks, not capacity.
- No page gives the jail a proper name, capacity, bond, visitation, PREA or fee information.
- What was tried: 2026 Q1/Q2 report PDFs, detention-officer and chief-deputy pages were refused (rate limit).
- Seat recorded from the sheriff's Homer address.
- What was tried: one search found bankscountyga.org, but its Board of Commissioners, About the Commissioners, directory, boards and worksession pages were all refused (robots timeout or rate limit), so governing body and budget not found.
- State inspection/oversight: Georgia law makes the sheriff the county's jailer. The Georgia Sheriffs' Association, an association of the state's sheriffs rather than a state agency, publishes jail standards and a statewide monthly jail report.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Banks 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 is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for the jail, and the judges who set bail.
Names verified 2026-09-29 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered