The Detention Center
No county-operated jail found. The Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic, Inc.
- Operated byCoreCivic, Inc. (private). CoreCivic states it has owned and managed the facility since 1990 and lists U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Torrance County as government partners.
- Facility address209 County Road A049, Estancia, NM 87016
- Who is held thereCoreCivic lists ICE and U.S. Marshals Service detainees; ICE lists the facility under its El Paso Field Office
- Not the county jailThe county website lists no detention department and no county detention facility; this is a privately operated facility, not a county-run jail
- Where county arrestees are heldNot found - the Torrance County website does not publish where county arrestees or sentenced misdemeanants are housed
- What was triedhttps://www.torrancecountynm.org/ (department list, no detention department) ; https://www.torrancecountynm.org/departments/county-sheriff ; https://www.torrancecountynm.org/departments/county-manager ; https://www.torrancecountynm.org/departments/county-commission ; https://www.torrancecountynm.org/departments/county-commission-archive ; https://www.torrancecountynm.org/departments/finance-department - none mention a detention facility or a detention services agreement
Source: CoreCivic facility page and ICE detention facility page · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗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. CoreCivic states it has owned and managed the Torrance County Detention Facility since 1990
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found - neither the CoreCivic page nor the ICE page opened published a bed capacity
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff David Frazee
- Runs the jailNo county-run jail was found on the county site; the Sheriff's Office page does not describe jail operations
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Torrance 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. Torrance County is in the Seventh Judicial District; a magistrate court also sits in the county, but no county-specific magistrate page was reachable.
Seventh Judicial District Court - Torrance County division
- Shannon Murdock-Poff (Division III, primary office in Torrance County)
Seventh Judicial District Court - Chief Judge
- Mercedes C. Murphy (Division I, primary office in Socorro County)
District serves
- Catron, Sierra, Socorro and Torrance 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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- This is the finding for Torrance County: the county's own website lists no detention department and names no county jail. The facility in Estancia named Torrance County Detention Facility is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic, Inc., which lists ICE and Torrance County as government partners. The county's site does not publish the terms of any agreement, so nothing is asserted about one here.
- Where county arrestees and sentenced misdemeanants are held is not published on the county website. Recorded as Not found rather than guessed.
- The budget check is yes: the Torrance County Finance Department publishes operating and final budgets going back many years. No corrections or detention line item was visible in the page listing.
- New Mexico's death-in-custody statute, NMSA 1978 Section 33-15-3, applies to private correctional facilities - which would include a privately operated facility - but imposes no reporting duty on county-operated jails. Torrance County publishes no in-custody death information on its own site.
- New Mexico has no mandatory statewide jail inspection body; the NM Association of Counties accreditation program is voluntary and no status for Torrance County was found published.
- Three-member Board of County Commissioners: Kevin McCall (District 1), Ryan Schwebach (District 2, Chair), Linda Jaramillo (District 3, Vice Chair). Regular meetings every other Wednesday at 9 a.m. at 205 S. Ninth Street, Estancia. Agendas, minutes, packets and resolutions are archived by year.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Torrance 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