The Detention Center
Catron County Detention Center
- Operated byCatron County Sheriff's Office
- Named whereThe Sheriff's Office About Us page lists the Catron County Detention Center as one of the five components of the Sheriff's Office
- Sheriff's Office location100 Main Street, Reserve, NM 87830 (mail P.O. Box 467)
- StaffingThe published Sheriff's Office staff roster lists the sheriff, undersheriff, an administrative assistant, deputies, a K-9 deputy and a wildlife investigator — no detention or corrections officers are listed, consistent with a very small holding facility rather than a full jail
- Detention Center pageThe Sheriff's Office previously had a Detention Center page at /government/county_sheriff_s_office/detention_center.php describing visitation on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 1:00–3:00 p.m. at the Sheriff's Office in Reserve. That URL now returns a 404 and the Detention Center no longer appears in the Sheriff's Office sub-navigation
- Beds / capacityNot found — nothing published
- Where longer-term prisoners goNot found. Neither the county site nor the Sheriff's Office page names a receiving jail or a regional facility, and no partner counties are identified
- What was triedhttps://www.catroncounty.us/ ; https://www.catroncounty.us/government/county_sheriff_s_office/index.php ; https://www.catroncounty.us/government/county_sheriff_s_office/about_us.php ; https://www.catroncounty.us/government/county_sheriff_s_office/staff_roster.php ; https://www.catroncounty.us/government/county_sheriff_s_office/detention_center.php (404) ; https://www.catroncounty.us/community/files___documents.php ; https://www.catroncounty.us/government/county_commission_office/meeting_agendas.php
Source: Catron County Sheriff's Office — About Us · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗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
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 Keith Hughes
- Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office states it is comprised of the Sheriff's Office, the Catron County PSAP (dispatch), the Catron County Detention Center, Wolf Interaction Investigation and Emergency Management
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff (New Mexico)
- In office sinceJuly 2021, per the Sheriff's Office About Us page
- UndersheriffRonny Hays
- Agency size8 law enforcement officers including the sheriff and undersheriff, 2 civilians and 8 public safety telecommunicators, serving about 3,700 people across 6,929 square miles
- Office address100 Main Street, Reserve; mail P.O. Box 467, Reserve, NM 87830; 575-533-6301
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Catron County Sheriff's Office — About Us · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
New Mexico judges are initially appointed by the Governor from a judicial nominating commission list, then stand in a partisan election at the next general election, and thereafter face retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. Catron County sits in the Seventh Judicial District, which also covers Socorro, Sierra and Torrance counties. Magistrate court judges usually set conditions of release at first appearance in New Mexico's rural counties, but the state courts site's Courts by County and Courts by District pages list only the district court for Catron; no magistrate court page or judge name for Catron County was found on any page opened, so the magistrate judge is recorded as Not found rather than guessed.
Seventh Judicial District Court — Chief Judge
- Mercedes C. Murphy (Division I, primary office in Socorro County)
Seventh Judicial District Court — District Judges
- Mercedes C. Murphy (Division I)
- Roscoe A. Woods (Division II, primary office in Sierra County)
- Shannon Murdock-Poff (Division III)
Catron County Magistrate Court — Judge
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Catron County is New Mexico's most sparsely populated county — the Sheriff's Office puts the population at about 3,700 across 6,929 square miles. The county does name a Catron County Detention Center as a component of the Sheriff's Office, but publishes nothing about its size, population, rules or costs, and its dedicated Detention Center web page has been removed and now returns 404.
- Where Catron County's longer-held prisoners actually go could not be established from any county source. No receiving jail, regional facility or partner county is named anywhere on the county site. This is recorded as an unresolved finding, not an assumption.
- The county's Document Center publishes commission agendas, agenda packets, policies and resolutions, but no annual budget, so the corrections or detention budget check is recorded as no.
- New Mexico has no mandatory statewide jail inspection body. The New Mexico Association of Counties runs a voluntary accreditation programme, and no NMAC accreditation status for Catron County was published on any page opened.
- New Mexico's death-in-custody statute, NMSA 1978 §33-15-3, applies to private correctional facilities only. County jails have no state death-reporting requirement, and Catron County publishes nothing on deaths in custody.
- Three-member Board of County Commissioners: Buster Green (District 1), Audrey McQueen (District 2), Haydn Forward (District 3). Commission office at P.O. Box 507, Reserve, NM 87830. Regular and special commission meeting agendas and agenda packets are published through the county's Document Center. No county budget document and no dedicated jail or detention tax was found on the county site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Catron 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 who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered