The Detention Center
Meriwether County Detention Center
- Operated byMeriwether County Sheriff's Office (Jail Division)
- LocationGreenville, GA
- Sheriff's Office address17234 Roosevelt Highway, Building B, Greenville, GA 30222
- Budget linesGeneral Fund SHERIFF and JAIL departments, plus a separate Jail Fund (200), in the 2025-2026 budget
Source: Meriwether County — Sheriff · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓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 Chuck Smith
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office "operates the Meriwether County Detention Center in Greenville"
- 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: Meriwether County — Sheriff · 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 Meriwether County
- Superior Court: the Coweta Judicial Circuit, which also serves Coweta and Troup. 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 Meriwether 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.
- NoteFive members elected by district to four-year terms.
- The boardMeriwether County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The directory website meriwethercountysheriff.org opened but did not name the sheriff; its 'inmate search' page is a generic statewide Georgia jail/prison directory, not a county roster, so it was not relied on.
- County site meriwethercountyga.gov (Georgia confirmed) has a Sheriff page naming Sheriff Chuck Smith and the Meriwether County Detention Center in Greenville; the Divisions page lists a Jail Division with no page of its own.
- 2025-2026 county budget shows SHERIFF and JAIL General Fund departments and a separate Jail Fund.
- No roster, capacity, bond, fee, PREA, inspection, death-in-custody or contract material found on the county pages opened.
- Seat recorded as Greenville from the county government address on the Government page; the page does not use the words 'county seat'.
- 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 Meriwether 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