The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byPulaski County Sheriff's Office
- BudgetPulaski County General Fund budget (year ending 12/31/2024): Sheriff $1,318,258; Jail Operations $898,750
Source: Pulaski County FY2024 Budget · 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 Wayne Wiley
- Runs the jailYes — Georgia sheriffs are the county jailers by law (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1); the county's jail officer job description places the county jail under the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office, reporting to the Sheriff/Captain
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- OfficeCourthouse, 141 Commerce St, (478) 783-1521
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Hawkinsville–Pulaski County — Directory · 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 Pulaski County
- Superior Court: the Oconee Judicial Circuit, which also serves Dodge, Montgomery, Telfair, Bleckley and Wheeler. 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 Pulaski 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.
- NoteSole commissioner form of government. The joint city-county Directory lists Jenna Mashburn, County Commissioner, Courthouse Annex, 45 S. Lumpkin St.
- The boardPulaski County Sole Commissioner →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The directory website hawkinsville-pulaski.org is the joint City of Hawkinsville / Pulaski County site; confirmed Pulaski County, Georgia, seat Hawkinsville.
- Sheriff Wayne Wiley is named on the site's Directory page.
- IMPORTANT GAP: the county's Sheriff Department page (/sheriff-department/), County Budgets page (/county-budgets/) and Sole Commissioner page were refused by the fetch proxy (HTTP 429 rate limit) and not read. Jail checks recorded 'no' here reflect pages we could not open, not a confirmed absence. Re-check /sheriff-department/ before relying on these.
- One site-restricted search found the Pulaski County FY2024 General Fund budget (Sheriff and Jail Operations lines) and a Jail Officer job description; neither names the jail or gives capacity.
- Magistrate Court page has no bond guidance.
- What was tried: home, /directory-2/, /county-contact/, /county-agenda-and-minutes2/, /magistrate-court/, FY-2024-Budget.pdf, JOB-DESCRIPTION-jailer.pdf. Closed: /sheriff-department/, /county-budgets/, /government/sole-county-commissioner/ (HTTP 429). One WebSearch used.
- Not scored: The county's sheriff department and budget pages were refused by our reader; only the directory, court and a few document pages were read. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: budget.
- 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 Pulaski 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