The Detention Center
Liberty County Jail
- Operated byLiberty County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address180 Paul Sikes Drive, Hinesville, GA 31313
- VisitationNo in-person visitation; video visitation daily via HomeWAV
- Booking fee$20.00 jail fee before release (sheriff's FAQ)
Source: Liberty County Sheriff's Office — Jail Information · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
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 William "Will" Bowman
- Runs the jailYes — Georgia sheriffs are the jailers of the counties by law (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1)
- 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: Liberty County Sheriff's Office — About · 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 Liberty County
- Superior Court: the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, which also serves Bryan, McIntosh, Tattnall, Evans and Long. 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 Liberty 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.
- The boardLiberty County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site libertyso.org opened; confirmed Liberty County, Georgia.
- Jail-inmates page links 'Current Jail Population' to an external records site (correctionsrecordssearch.com/libertycountyga) described as a report from the sheriff's in-house database; that external page returned no readable content.
- FAQ page explains cash bond, approved bonding companies and property bond requirements, and states a $20.00 jail fee.
- Quarterly Immigration and Nationality Act reports are posted (e.g. Q2 2026: 1,193 inmates booked); these are booking counts, not capacity or daily population.
- County FY2026/FY2027 budget notices on libertycountyga.gov showed only images; no sheriff or jail line could be read.
- No capacity, PREA, inspection, death-in-custody or contract material found.
- 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 Liberty 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