The Detention Center
Jackson County Jail
- Operated byJackson County Sheriff's Office
- Named onSheriff's Inmate Bonding Procedure page (booking area of the Jackson County Jail)
- AddressNot found (sheriff Jail Division page could not be opened)
Source: Jackson County Sheriff's Office — Inmate Bonding Procedure · 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 Kevin B. McCook
- Runs the jailYes — Georgia law makes the sheriff the county's jailer; the sheriff's bonding page says the Sheriff approves the bondsman list posted in the Jackson County Jail booking area
- 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: Jackson 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 Jackson County
- Superior Court: the Piedmont Judicial Circuit, which also serves Barrow. 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 Jackson 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.
- NoteSix members: chairman elected at-large plus five district commissioners; meets 1st and 3rd Monday
- The boardJackson County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff site jacksoncountysheriff.us home page opened and confirmed Jackson County, Georgia; it names Sheriff Kevin B. McCook, matching the directory lead. The home page says the site is under construction.
- Sheriff's Inmate Bonding Procedure page (found by one search) explains cash, property (valued at twice the bond) and professional bondsman options and names the Jackson County Jail.
- The sheriff's Jail Division, Inmate Information, Divisions, Sheriff bio, Contact and Document Center pages all failed for our reader (server errors, 403, robots.txt timeouts, then proxy HTTP 429 rate limit). Roster, capacity, visitation, fee and PREA checks are therefore scored no without those pages being read — this county needs a re-check.
- County site jacksoncountygov.com home page and Board of Commissioners page opened (county seat Jefferson; six-member board). The Government page, Sheriff's Office staff directory and the county Correctional Institute page were refused (robots.txt failures, then HTTP 429). Budget not examined.
- What was tried: opened jacksoncountysheriff.us / and /609/Inmate-Bonding-Procedure, jacksoncountygov.com / and /373/Board-of-Commissioners. Failed: jacksoncountysheriff.us /566/Divisions, /661/Sheriff-Kevin-B-McCook, /571/Contact-Us, /DocumentCenter, /587/Jail-Division, /608/Inmate-Information; jacksoncountygov.com /27/Government, /179/Correctional-Institute, /Directory.aspx?did=45.
- Not scored: The sheriff's jail division, inmate information and contact pages were refused by our reader; only the home page and bonding procedure page were read. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: named, bond_info.
- 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 Jackson 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