Ware County, Georgia — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Ware County Jail

Operated byWare County Sheriff's Office
Jail address3487 Harris Road, Waycross, GA 31503
VisitationHomeWAV video visitation (no-cost option); in-person by pre-approved appointment; no contact visits
Phone providerATN, Inc. (rates not listed)
Jail AdministratorCaptain Anthony "Tony" Youmans, Jail Administrator

Source: Ware County Sheriff's Office — Visitation · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Ware County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-29. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

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 Carl James

Runs the jailYes — Georgia sheriffs are the jailers of the counties by law (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1)
How the office is filledElected, four-year term

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Ware County Sheriff's Office — 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 Ware County

Superior Court: the Waycross Judicial Circuit, which also serves Pierce, Coffee, Charlton, Bacon and Brantley. 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 Ware County Magistrate Court. For most charges a magistrate sets bail soon after arrest.

Still needed

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 boardWare County Board of Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Sheriff's page names Sheriff Carl James (directory lead 'J. Carl James').
Visitation page names the Ware County Jail, its address and Jail Administrator Capt. Anthony 'Tony' Youmans.
Roster: 'Current Jail Population' link on the sheriff's site opens an agency-branded current detainee roster at offenderindex.com/warecoga.
Visitation page mentions a no-cost HomeWAV option but lists no phone, video or commissary rates — fees scored no.
No capacity, budget, PREA, inspection, contract, bond or death information found on the sheriff's pages (home, sheriff, visitation, forms, directory, links).
County government site (warecountyga.gov, found by search) Commission page names the Board of Commissioners and hosts commission minutes; county seat Waycross.
County Finance page links approved/proposed budgets FY2023-FY2027 (files on the site's cdn.prod.website-files.com host); the FY2027 and FY2026 PDFs were refused by the reader (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED), so a sheriff/jail line is unverified — budget scored no.
What was tried: https://www.warecounty.com/ refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED).
Searches used: 1.
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 Ware 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