The Detention Center
Cobb County Adult Detention Center (also called Cobb County Jail Complex)
- Operated byCobb County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address1825 County Services Parkway, Marietta, GA 30008
- Rated capacity3,077 beds across A, B and C Towers (division page); PREA audit 2023 gives rated capacity 3,067
- Average daily population1,956 (12 months before the March 2023 PREA audit)
- BuiltOriginal facility 1987 (division page; jail-history page says 1989); B building 1997; C Tower 2010
- CostOriginal $13.5 million; 1997 expansion $39.2 million; C Tower $110 million (division page)
- FundingOriginal and 1997 expansion paid by property bonds; C Tower by a special sales tax
- Phone providerGlobal Tel Link; calls $0.12 per minute (page reads '0.12 cents per minute')
- Jail AdministratorColonel Michael A. Williams, Division Commander, Adult Detention Center (Lt. Col. David Hilsman, Assistant Division Commander)
Source: Cobb County Sheriff's Office — Adult Detention Center · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
7/10Open- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1987 (division page); jail-history page says 1989
- Original cost$13.5 million (division page); jail-history page says $48 million for 864 beds
- Paid for byProperty bonds (original and 1997 expansion); special sales tax (C Tower, 2010)
- Beds3,077
Since then
- 1997 expansion (B building), $39.2 million
- C Tower, 2010, $110 million, special sales tax
The Sheriff
Sheriff Craig D. Owens Sr.
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office runs the Adult Detention Center division (Georgia law makes the sheriff the county's jailer)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- First electedNovember 2020, per the sheriff's own page
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Cobb County Sheriff's Office — Meet the Sheriff · 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 Cobb County
- Superior Court: the Cobb Judicial Circuit, which serves Cobb County alone. 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 Cobb 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.
- NoteFive-member board including a chairwoman
- The boardCobb County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's own site names Craig D. Owens Sr. as sheriff; matches the directory lead.
- Roster: inmate search at inmate-search.cobbsheriff.org is linked as the sheriff's own lookup (link seen; not opened, http only).
- PREA: zero-tolerance statement, annual PREA reports 2023-2025 and the 2023 PREA audit report posted; audit (March 2023) found 45 standards met, 0 not met.
- Inspections scored no: the only audit posted is the PREA audit (scored under prea); CALEA accreditation is referenced via a public comment portal, no report posted.
- Bond page explains cash, license, property, out-of-county property, professional bonding and pretrial release; $20 non-refundable fee per bond instrument.
- Fees: phone rate published ($0.12/min per GTL); video visits via GTL Visit Me, rate not stated.
- Budget: FY2026 adopted budget on cobbcounty.gov shows Sheriff line, FY26 proposed $133,122,775.
- Sheriff's own pages give different build dates/costs: division page (1987, $13.5M) vs jail-history page (1989, $48M, 864 beds; late-1990s expansion $32M to 2,048).
- A Q2 2026 HB 1105 report PDF is linked from the home page but our reader could not extract its text.
- No deaths-in-custody information or jail contracts found on the sheriff's or county site pages opened.
- 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 Cobb 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