The Detention Center
Not scored. The parish's and sheriff's own websites could not be reached or read in the session that produced this record, so their disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the parish.
- Operated byNot found
- Facility listed by the LSAThe Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory lists a "Parish Prison" at 8606 Hwy. 65, Waterproof, LA 71375, phone 318.749.5810; no first-party page confirms its name or operator
- Sheriff's own siteNone found; the one search returned only commercial inmate-lookup sites and the LSA directory, and the LSA directory entry gives no separate sheriff website
- What was triedOne search. The LSA directory entry was opened. No sheriff's or parish government domain appeared in the results, so no first-party page was examined.
Source: Louisiana Sheriffs' Association - Tensas Parish · checked 2026-09-18
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 Robert L. "Rob" Rushing
- Runs the jailNot confirmed on a first-party page; no sheriff's or parish website was found
- How the office is filledElected parish sheriff
- Statutory basisLa. R.S. 15:704 makes each sheriff the keeper of the public jail of his parish; under R.S. 15:702 and 15:703 the parish governing authority maintains the jail building and provides the jail physician
- Where the name comes fromThe Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory lists Sheriff Robert L. "Rob" Rushing; no date of election or taking office was found
- Office address212 Hancock Street, Suite B., Saint Joseph, LA 71366; 318.766.3499 (LSA directory)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Louisiana Sheriffs' Association - Tensas Parish · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Louisiana district judges are elected in partisan elections to six-year terms. They are state judicial officers, not parish officials. Who sets bail at first appearance varies by parish — a district judge on rotation, a magistrate or commissioner, or in some parishes a justice of the peace — and Louisiana's bail statutes do not require that first appearance to happen in open court. No page opened names the judicial district, so none is recorded.
- The parish's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-18
The Parish Governing Authority
They maintain the jail building. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe physical maintenance of the parish jail and the jail physician (La. R.S. 15:702, 15:703).
- What they don'tCustody of the jail. Under La. R.S. 15:704 the elected sheriff is “the keeper of the public jail of his parish.”
- The governing bodyNo governing-body page was found on the parish's own site
Notes on the record
- Louisiana has no general parish-jail inspection law. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections monitors compliance with its Basic Jail Guidelines at least annually, but only for jails that house state inmates for the state per diem; no public repository of those compliance reports was located.
- The checks are left empty because no first-party site was examined: search returned no sheriff's or parish government domain for Tensas Parish, Louisiana. This is not a finding that the parish publishes nothing.
- The sheriff's name, the parish seat (Saint Joseph) and the Waterproof prison address come from the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory, which is not the parish or sheriff publishing.
- Search results for this parish were dominated by commercial inmate-lookup sites (tensasparishjailla.org, louisianainmateroster.org, tensasparishjail.org, louisianaprisonroster.org, sabinesheriff.com, sthelenaso.org) that refer variously to a Tensas Parish Jail and a Tensas Parish Detention Center; none were used.
- Not found. No parish government page was found, so the form of government and members are not recorded here.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Tensas Parish 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 who runs this jail is elected. So is the parish governing body that pays for it.
Names verified 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered