The Detention Center
Doña Ana County Detention Center (adult facility and a separate juvenile detention centre)
- Operated byDoña Ana County
- Who runs itBryan Baker — Director, Doña Ana County Detention Center. Reports to: County Manager
- Jail address1850 Copper Loop, Las Cruces, NM 88005
- Phone(575) 647-7600
- Adult capacity846 detainees
- Juvenile capacity50
- Staff197, including administrative, security, support, medical and contract staff
- Adult facility built1995, originally designed with 562 beds
- Expansion2000 — additional housing unit and remodelling raised the count to 846 beds and 166,543 square feet
- Juvenile facility50-bed facility built 2000, opened 2001, five units
- DesignDirect-supervision style — glass partitions rather than bars; inmates in seven secure housing units
- Live populationPublic Inmates Online system showed 656 current inmates when opened on 24 August 2026
Source: Doña Ana County Detention Center · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1995 (adult facility); juvenile facility built 2000 and opened 2001
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byOperating funding per the county's own FY23 Final Budget Book: Detention Center total expenditure budget $33,280,262 for FY23 (FY22 budget $29,668,349; FY22 actuals $26,044,243). Total budgeted detention revenue about $18.2 million, of which roughly $11.1 million is care-of-prisoner fees and $6.0 million correctional facility gross receipts tax, plus a $10.5 million General Fund subsidy.
- Beds846 adult; 50 juvenile
Since then
- 2000 — additional housing unit plus remodelling, raising beds from 562 to 846 and total living space to 166,543 square feet
The Sheriff
Sheriff Kim Stewart
- Runs the jailNo — the Doña Ana County Detention Center is a separate county department under a Director; the county lists Sheriff and Detention Center as different departments
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff; listed on the county site under Other Elected Officials
- Sheriff's office845 N Motel Blvd, Las Cruces, NM 88007
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Doña Ana County — Sheriff Kim Stewart · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
New Mexico judges are initially appointed by the Governor to fill a vacancy, then stand in a partisan election at the next general election, and thereafter face non-partisan retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. The Third Judicial District covers Doña Ana County alone. Magistrate judges normally set conditions of release at first appearance.
Third Judicial District Court (Doña Ana County) — district judges
- Manuel I. Arrieta (Division I)
- Robert Lara (Division II)
- Conrad F. Perea (Division III)
- Rebecca C. Duffin (Division IV)
- Casey B. Fitch (Division V)
- James T. Martin (Division VI)
- Douglas R. Driggers (Division VII)
- Grace B. Duran (Division VIII)
- Richard M. Jacquez (Division IX)
Third Judicial District Court — Chief Judge
- Not found — the district's judges page does not designate a chief judge
Doña Ana County Magistrate Court
- Not found — the Third District site does not publish a magistrate judge roster; it does confirm Doña Ana County Magistrate Court divisions at Las Cruces and Anthony
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 2026-08-24
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
- Doña Ana County is the largest county in this group and by far the most transparent. The elected sheriff does not run the jail: the Detention Center is a county department led by Director Bryan Baker.
- Roster: the county runs its own public 'Inmates Online' system on a county domain; it showed 656 current inmates when opened on 24 August 2026, so both bed capacity and live population are published.
- PREA recorded as 'yes': the county publishes Certificates of Compliance, adult and juvenile PREA policies, and third-party Audit Reports for adult and juvenile facilities dated 2020, 2023 and 2026, plus PREA annual reports.
- The Detention Center Transparency page publishes quarterly Restrictive Housing Act reports for the facility running from 2021 through 2025. These are the county's own quarterly reports, not an outside inspection, so 'inspections' is recorded as 'no'; the only independent review published is the PREA audit already counted above.
- Contracts recorded as 'no': the FY23 budget book shows roughly $11.1 million a year in care-of-prisoner fee revenue, which indicates the county holds other agencies' prisoners, but no contract document or per-diem rate schedule is published on the county site.
- Fees recorded as 'no': the county names its video-visitation and phone vendors and gives an inmate phone service number, but publishes no phone, video visit or commissary rates.
- No death-in-custody record was found published on the county site.
- New Mexico has no mandatory statewide jail inspection body. The New Mexico Association of Counties runs a voluntary accreditation programme; no accreditation status for Doña Ana County was found published. NMSA 1978 Section 33-15-3, the state death-in-custody reporting statute, applies to private correctional facilities only, so this county-run jail has no state death-reporting requirement.
- Board of County Commissioners, five districts: Christopher Schaljo Hernandez (District 1), Gloria Gameros (District 2, Vice Chair), Susie Kimble (District 3), Susana Chaparro (District 4), Manuel A. Sanchez (District 5, Chair). The county's own FY23 budget book records a Correctional facility gross receipts tax producing about $6.0 million for the Detention fund, plus Board-designated Hold Harmless gross receipts tax proceeds ($2.2 million from the 2nd 1/8th and $2.0 million from the 3rd 1/8th) inside a $10.5 million General Fund subsidy to detention.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Doña Ana 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