The Detention Center
Lowndes County Jail
- Operated byLowndes County Sheriff's Office
- Average daily population"an average of 700 inmates per day"
- StaffOver 100 officers
- Sheriff's Office address120 Prison Farm Road, Valdosta, GA 31603 (county sheriff page)
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Jason Clifton (Jail Operations Commander)
Source: Lowndes County Sheriff's Office — Divisions · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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 — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
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 Ashley Paulk
- 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: Lowndes County Sheriff's Office — Divisions · 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 Lowndes County
- Superior Court: the Southern Judicial Circuit, which also serves Brooks, Colquitt, Echols and Thomas. 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 Lowndes 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 boardLowndes County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- lowndessheriff.com redirects to sheriff.lowndescounty.com; confirmed Lowndes County, Georgia (Valdosta).
- Sheriff's site links 'Current Inmates' to the county-hosted portal portalprod.lowndescounty.com/PublicAccess; the portal itself failed with too many redirects.
- Divisions page states the jail holds an average of 700 inmates per day; no rated capacity found.
- FY2026-2027 budget hearing presentation shows Sheriff's Office at $0.36 of each dollar and a Jail Operations special revenue fund ($306,366 / $305,159).
- County sheriff page links a Bonds search on the portal and NCIC video visitation; no written bond guidance or fee rates found. Jail ATM page showed no content.
- No 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 Lowndes 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