The Detention Center
Santa Fe County Adult Correctional Facility
- Operated bySanta Fe County Corrections Department
- Who runs itDerek Williams — Warden, Santa Fe County Adult Correctional Facility (Santa Fe County Corrections Department). Reports to: Santa Fe County Corrections Department / County Manager - a county department separate from the Sheriff's Office
- Jail address28 Camino Justicia, Santa Fe, NM 87508
- LocationAbout 14 miles south of Santa Fe off NM 599 onto NM 14, I-25 exit 272
- Department createdJanuary 2004, when the facilities moved from private to county operation
- PopulationApproximately 775 detainees across all programs
- StaffApproximately 320 employees
- Other programs run by the departmentYouth Development Program; Electronic Monitoring Program
- Accreditation and inspectionsNew Mexico Association of Counties accreditation; periodic U.S. Marshals compliance inspections
Source: Santa Fe County Corrections Department / Adult Correctional Facility · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✓Independent inspection
- ✗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 - the county publishes an approximate detainee count (about 775 across all programs) but no rated bed capacity
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Adan Mendoza
- Runs the jailNo - the county Corrections Department runs the Adult Correctional Facility
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff; second term, 2023 - 2026
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Santa Fe County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
New Mexico judges are initially appointed by the Governor to fill a vacancy, then must run in a partisan election at the next general election, and thereafter face non-partisan retention elections. District and magistrate judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. Santa Fe County is in the First Judicial District; the district's own judges page did not identify a chief judge, so none is named here. A Santa Fe magistrate court also sits in the county but no county-specific magistrate page was reachable.
First Judicial District Court - Criminal divisions
- Jason Lidyard (Division V - Criminal, Juvenile)
- T. Glenn Ellington (Division VII - Criminal)
- Anastasia R. Martin (Division VIII - Rio Arriba Civil, Adult Criminal)
First Judicial District Court - Other divisions
- Francis J. Mathew (Division I)
- Maria Sanchez-Gagne (Division II)
- Todd A. Coberly (Division III)
- Denise M. Thomas (Division IV)
- Bryan Biedscheid (Division VI)
- Matthew J. Wilson (Division IX)
- Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood (Division X)
- Dylan O'Reilly (Division XI)
District serves
- Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties
- 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 →
Notes on the record
- Capacity is marked no: the county publishes an approximate population figure but not a rated bed count, and the check requires both.
- Inspections is marked yes only because the county's own corrections page states the department holds New Mexico Association of Counties accreditation and receives periodic U.S. Marshals compliance inspections. No inspection or accreditation report document is published.
- The corrections page lists a Prison Rape Elimination Act sublink, but no PREA audit result URL was reachable, so the PREA check is recorded as no.
- Budget: the county publishes an FY2026 Proposed Operating Budget Book and historical budgets, plus quarterly financial reports and corrections expenditure charts, on its finance/budget page.
- New Mexico has no mandatory statewide jail inspection body; the NM Association of Counties accreditation program is voluntary.
- NMSA 1978 Section 33-15-3, the death-in-custody statute, applies to private correctional facilities only. County-operated jails have no state death-reporting requirement.
- Five-member Board of County Commissioners elected from single-member districts: Justin S. Greene (D, District 1), Lisa Cacari Stone (D, District 2), Camilla Bustamante (D, District 3), Adam F. Johnson (D, District 4), Hank Hughes (D, District 5). Regular meetings 2:00 p.m. on the second and last Tuesday of each month at the John Gaw Meem Courthouse. Agendas and materials are hosted on an off-site Diligent portal.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Santa Fe 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