The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byCharlton County Sheriff's Office
- Published by sheriffThe sheriff's site names a Jail Administrator but does not name or describe the jail
- Jail AdministratorCaptain King, Jail Administrator (first name not given on the page)
Source: Charlton County Sheriff's Office — home page · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗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 Robert Phillips
- Runs the jailYes — Georgia sheriffs are the jailers of their counties (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term (current term 2025–2028)
- TermServing his second term; in office since 2021 (sheriff's site)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Charlton County Sheriff's Office — home page · 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 Charlton County
- Superior Court: the Waycross Judicial Circuit, which also serves Pierce, Coffee, Ware, Bacon and Brantley. 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 Charlton 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.
- NoteCounty site home page was rate-limited when tried.
- The boardCharlton County Board of Commissioners
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's own site names Sheriff Robert Phillips, in office since 2021.
- Sheriff's site is a single-page site with forms (reports, open records, crime tips, compliments/complaints), a criminal-history form, an employment application and outside links; it names Captain King as Jail Administrator but publishes no jail name, roster, bond, fee or other jail material.
- County site Sheriff page (charltoncountyga.us/207/Sheriff) opened but showed only the mission statement.
- County lists a '2024 Budget Summary History 5 Year' document, but it refused our reader (robots.txt timeout), so budget is left 'no'.
- What was tried: charltonso.org (refused once via prompt URL, then opened from search result), one search, charltoncountyga.us/207/Sheriff (opened), budget summary PDF (refused: robots), charltoncountyga.us home (rate-limited, HTTP 429).
- 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 Charlton 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