The Detention Center
Tift County Jail
- Operated byTift County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address500 Morgan Drive, PO Box 46, Tifton, GA 31793
- Beds"over 260 beds in one facility"
- Year built1997
- TypePrimarily a pre-trial detention center
- Staff49 staff, 24/7; about 750 meals daily; medical unit
- Jail phone229-388-6020
Source: Tift County Sheriff's Office — Jail page · 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 built1997
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsOver 260 beds (sheriff's Jail page)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Gene Scarbrough
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff's own Jail page describes the Tift County Jail run by the Sheriff's Office (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Named on own siteSheriff Gene Scarbrough, on the sheriff's message and Links & Resources pages
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Tift County Sheriff's Office — message page · 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 Tift County
- Superior Court: the Tifton Judicial Circuit, which also serves Irwin, Worth and Turner. 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 Tift 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 boardTift County Commission (Board of Commissioners) →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site confirmed as Tift County, Georgia; Jail page names the Tift County Jail, built 1997, over 260 beds.
- Current Inmates page (roster.php) links to the Sheriff's Office inmate roster hosted at offenderindex.com.
- Command Staff page lists Lt. Colonel Daniel Torres over Special Details / Detention Division / Court Services; no page titles anyone jail administrator, so none recorded.
- County Financial Reports page posts adopted budgets FY17–FY27; FY24–FY27 PDFs had no machine-readable text for our reader; the FY2018 adopted budget shows a Jail department line (dept 03325) and a Sheriff's Department line.
- Public Information page lists civil process, criminal history and record-restriction fees only; no phone, video-visit, commissary or booking fee rates found.
- No bond guidance, PREA, inspection, death-in-custody or contract material found on the sheriff's site.
- County seat taken from the county home page address (225 Tift Avenue N, Tifton); the page does not use the words 'county seat'.
- What was tried: tiftsheriff.org home, Administration, Command Staff, History, Jail, Public Information, Support Services, Links & Resources, message, roster; tiftcounty.org home, Finance, Financial Reports, Resource Library (agendas/minutes). No web search 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 Tift 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