The Detention Center
Rabun County Detention Center
- Operated byRabun County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address175 Boen Creek Road, Tiger, Georgia
- Rated capacity102-bed facility
- FY2027 budgetRabun County Jail $3,593,102; Sheriff's Department $3,450,587
- Jail AdministratorMajor Beth Darnell, Support Services Division
Source: Rabun County Sheriff — Jail Division · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓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
- ✓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
- Beds102
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Mark Gerrells
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office Jail Division operates the Rabun County Detention Center
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- BackgroundCounty page cites a 38-year law enforcement career, including Chief of Police for Clayton
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Rabun County — Sheriff 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 Rabun County
- Superior Court: the Mountain Judicial Circuit, which also serves Banks, Habersham and Stephens. 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 Rabun 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, staggered four-year terms; regular meeting the 4th Tuesday of each month, 6:00 p.m., Rabun County Courthouse, 25 Courthouse Square, Clayton.
- The boardRabun County Board of Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- SHERIFF CONFLICT RESOLVED: the directory website rabunsheriff.org opened but still shows Chad K. Nichols as sheriff and has no links; the county's official site (rabuncounty.ga.gov, found by search) names Sheriff Mark Gerrells on its Sheriff Administration, Jail Division and Meet Your Sheriff pages, matching the 2026 directory. rabunsheriff.org appears out of date and is not cited.
- Jail Division page names the Rabun County Detention Center, 175 Boen Creek Road, Tiger, a 102-bed facility, with Major Beth Darnell (Support Services Division) listed for the jail.
- Detention Center FAQs explain property, transfer-property, cash and professional bonds; $20 bonding fee on county bonds; $3.25 charge per commissary kiosk transaction. No bond schedule; no phone or video-visit rates.
- Inmate Search links to interopweb.com/rabun/jailpop/, which our reader was refused (robots.txt), so the roster could not be seen and is not counted.
- FY2027 Final Approved Budget Summary shows a 'Rabun County Jail' line and a Sheriff's Department line.
- No PREA, deaths, inspection or contract material found on the Sheriff's pages opened.
- What was tried: rabunsheriff.org (stale single page); rabuncounty.ga.gov sheriff-administration, jail-division, detention-center-faqs, media/936 (FAQ PDF), inmate-visitation, meet-your-sheriff, duties-mandates-required-sheriff, finance, budget-summaries, media/3426 (FY2027 budget), boc. Closed: interopweb.com/rabun/jailpop/ (robots.txt). One WebSearch used.
- 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 Rabun 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