The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byWheeler County Sheriff's Office
Source: Georgia Sheriffs' Association 2026 Directory · 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 Glenn Giles
- Runs the jailYes — Georgia sheriffs are the jailers of their counties by law (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- CurrentNamed in the Georgia Sheriffs' Association 2026 Directory; not confirmed on a county page
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Georgia Sheriffs' Association 2026 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 Wheeler County
- Superior Court: the Oconee Judicial Circuit, which also serves Dodge, Montgomery, Pulaski, Telfair and Bleckley. 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 Wheeler 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.
- NoteNo official county website could be opened.
- The boardNot found
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Not examined: no official Wheeler County or sheriff website could be opened.
- What was tried: the directory website entry ('https://Sworn') is not a valid domain; www.wheelercountyga.com and www.wheelercountyga.gov did not resolve; www.wheelercountyga.org returned only a 'Redirecting...' stub.
- A second search found the ACCG county page, which lists wheelercounty.org as the county website; that site's own footer says it is privately owned, so it was not treated as the county publishing. County seat (Alamo) taken from the ACCG page.
- One search ('Wheeler County Georgia sheriff jail') returned only a state DOC page, Wikipedia and aggregator sites; wheelercounty.org states it is 'a privately owned website' and was not used.
- The only sheriff link found was a Facebook page, which does not count as the county publishing.
- Sheriff name taken from the association directory lead; not confirmed on a county page.
- 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 Wheeler 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