Coffee County, Georgia — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Coffee County Pre-Trial Detention Center

Operated byCoffee County Sheriff's Office
Jail address825 Thompson Dr., Douglas, GA 31533
Jail phone(912) 383-6398
Rated capacityNot found
Video visitsRemote visits through JailATM carry a fee; on-site kiosk visits are free
Deposit fee$2.00 service fee on mailed money orders

Source: Coffee County Sheriff's Office — Press page (jail contact block) · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

Not scored. Coffee County's and its sheriff's own websites could not be reached or read in the session that produced this record, so their disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.

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 Fred T. Cole

Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office runs the Coffee County Pre-Trial Detention Center
How the office is filledElected, four-year term; county page calls him the 26th Sheriff, elected in 2025

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Coffee County, GA — Sheriff (county site) · 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 Coffee County

Superior Court: the Waycross Judicial Circuit, which also serves Pierce, Charlton, 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 Coffee County Magistrate Court. For most charges a magistrate sets bail soon after arrest.

Still needed

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.
NoteMeets 1st Monday monthly, 224 West Ashley Street, Douglas
The boardCoffee County Board of Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Sheriff Fred T. Cole is named on the county's own sheriff page and the sheriff's home page; matches the directory lead.
Jail FAQ covers video visitation (JailATM, fee charged for remote visits), deposits (lobby kiosk, money order with $2.00 fee, commissarydeposit.com) and mail; no phone rate.
Bond agencies page lists approved agencies and warns improperly completed bonds are refused; no guidance on how to post bond, so bond_info scored no.
What was tried: the Pre-Trial Detention Center page and Command Staff page refused (robots.txt), so capacity, jail administrator and any roster/PREA on those pages could not be read. The home page's 'Inmate Search' link URL could not be extracted by our reader; coffeesheriffga.gov/inmate-search was rate-limited (HTTP 429).
An HB1105 Report page is linked from the sheriff's site; not opened.
County agendas/minutes page (2021-2026) opened; no budget document linked from the government or agendas pages.
Seat: county offices and commission meetings are at 224 West Ashley Street, Douglas, per the county site.
No deaths, inspection or contract material found on pages opened. Search used: 1.
Not scored: The sheriff's detention center page and inmate search were refused by our reader; only the jail FAQ, bond agencies and home pages were read. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: named, fees.
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 Coffee 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