The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byPutnam County Sheriff's Office
- Jail phone706-485-2680
- Jail CommanderLt. Tracey Pitocchelli, 'in charge of the Jail Facilities'
- Jail AdministratorLt. Tracey Pitocchelli, Jail Commander
Source: Putnam County Sheriff's Office — Administration · 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 Howard R. Sills
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office has a Jail Division led by a Jail Commander 'in charge of the Jail Facilities'
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Office address111 Ridley Drive, Eatonton, GA 31024
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Putnam County Sheriff's Office — Administration · 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 Putnam County
- Superior Court: the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit, which also serves Baldwin, Greene, Jasper, Jones, Morgan, Wilkinson and Hancock. 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 Putnam 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.
- NoteThe county government site putnamcountyga.us (linked from the sheriff's site) was refused by our reader, so the governing body's own page and minutes URL could not be confirmed.
- The boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site putnamcountysheriff.org opened; confirmed Putnam County, Georgia (Eatonton). Sheriff Howard R. Sills named; Jail Commander Lt. Tracey Pitocchelli named on the Administration page.
- IMPORTANT GAP: the sheriff's Jail Division page (/jail-division) and FAQ page (/faq) were refused by the fetch proxy (HTTP 429 rate limit) and were not read. Most jail checks would live there, so the 'no' results for this county reflect pages we could not open, not a confirmed absence. Re-check /jail-division before relying on these.
- Pages that did open (home, Departments, Administration, Forms, Warrants & Civil Process, Contact, Sheriff's Message) show no jail name, roster, capacity, bond, fee, PREA, death, inspection or contract material. Civil process fees are posted but are not jail fees.
- Budget and governing body not checked: the county site putnamcountyga.us was refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED), and the one search returned no county-government page.
- What was tried: putnamcountysheriff.org home, /departments, /administration, /forms, /warrants-civil-process, /contact, /sheriffs-message. Closed: /jail-division and /faq (HTTP 429), putnamcountyga.us (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED). One WebSearch used.
- Not scored: The sheriff's jail division and FAQ pages were refused by our reader; only the sheriff's general pages were read. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked.
- 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 Putnam 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