The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byCook County Sheriff's Office
- Jail detailsCounty sheriff page says only that the office operates the county jail
Source: Cook County, Georgia — Sheriff's Office (county site) · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
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 Doug Hanks
- Runs the jailYes — the county's sheriff page lists 'Operates County Jail' among the office's services
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Cook County, Georgia — Sheriff's Office (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 Cook County
- Superior Court: the Alapaha Judicial Circuit, which also serves Atkinson, Berrien, Clinch and Lanier. 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 Cook 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 home page refused our reader; governing body page not opened
- The boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- County site names 'The Honorable Doug Hanks' as sheriff (directory lead: Douglas G. Hanks).
- Only the county's sheriff page opened; it says the office operates the county jail but names no facility and publishes no jail information.
- What was tried: cookcogasheriff.com rate-limited (HTTP 429); https://www.cookcogasheriff.com/ refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED); www.cookcogasheriff.com/index.shtml returned 404; cookcountyga.us home refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED). The sheriff's own site was therefore not examined, so these 'no' findings cover the county page only.
- One search used; other results were aggregators and yellow pages, not used.
- Not scored: The sheriff's own website could not be opened by our reader; only a short county sheriff page was read. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked.
- 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 Cook 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