The Detention Center
Clayton-Union County Jail (named only in the county's Comprehensive Plan)
- Operated byNot published by the county. The Comprehensive Plan sets as a strategy 'pursuing a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Town of Clayton and the New Mexico Corrections Department that addresses the management of the Clayton-Union County Jail', which indicates a shared arrangement between the county, the Town of Clayton and the state corrections department rather than a county-run facility.
- Named inUnion County Comprehensive Plan, public safety chapter
- Shared arrangementMOU sought with the Town of Clayton and the New Mexico Corrections Department over management of the jail
- Separate state facility in the countyNortheast New Mexico Detention Facility, Clayton — opened August 2008, owned by the Town of Clayton, operated by the GEO Group under contract with the New Mexico Corrections Department, holds a maximum of 625 state inmates. This is a state prison contract facility, not the county jail.
- Beds / capacity of the county jailNot found
- Year built / cost / fundingNot found
- Dedicated taxThe county's own ordinance index lists 'Ordinance 28 - Correctional Gross Receipts Tax' — a dedicated corrections gross receipts tax. The PDF is a non-text scan, so the rate and adoption date could not be read.
- What was triedhttps://www.unionnm.us/101/Departments (no detention department listed); https://www.unionnm.us/179/Sheriffs-Office; https://www.unionnm.us/sitemap (no jail or detention page anywhere in the sitemap); https://www.unionnm.us/168/Documents; https://www.unionnm.us/169/Ordinances; https://www.unionnm.us/170/Resolutions and https://www.unionnm.us/189/FY-2026-Resolutions; https://www.unionnm.us/AgendaCenter and the 11 August 2026 commission agenda (no jail item)
Source: Union County Comprehensive Plan (county website) · 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 Curtis Skaggs
- TitleUnion County Sheriff
- Office address200 Court Street, PO Box 430, Clayton, NM 88415
- How the office is filledElected county sheriff (New Mexico county sheriffs are elected)
- Runs a jail?Not stated — the Sheriff's Office page does not mention a jail, detention centre, inmates, bond or a roster
- Staff namedNikki Callis, Executive Secretary
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Union County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
New Mexico trial judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. A judge is initially appointed by the Governor from a judicial nominating commission list, then must stand in the next general election as a partisan candidate, and thereafter faces non-partisan retention elections. In Union County the Magistrate Court judge normally handles first appearances and conditions of release; the Eighth Judicial District Court handles felony matters.
Eighth Judicial District Court — District Judges
- Steven A. Romero
- Jeffrey A. Shannon
Union County Magistrate Court
- Mary Louise Harkins
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
- The 'named' check is a narrow yes: the only place Union County names a jail on its own website is one sentence in the public safety chapter of the Union County Comprehensive Plan, which refers to 'the Clayton-Union County Jail'. There is no detention centre department, page, roster, or contact anywhere on unionnm.us — the full county sitemap was checked and lists ten departments, none of them detention.
- The Sheriff's Office page names Sheriff Curtis Skaggs but says nothing about operating a jail, holding inmates, bond, visitation or fees.
- Union County publishes a budget adoption resolution (Resolution 2026-09, FY2025-2026) but it is a scanned image with no machine-readable text, so no corrections or detention line item could be confirmed. The 'budget' check is therefore recorded as no: no corrections or detention budget is published in readable form.
- The county's ordinance index lists 'Ordinance 28 - Correctional Gross Receipts Tax'. New Mexico counties may impose a county correctional facility gross receipts tax; the ordinance PDF is a non-text scan so the rate is not recorded here rather than guessed.
- The Northeast New Mexico Detention Facility in Clayton is frequently confused with a county jail. It is not one: it opened in August 2008, is owned by the Town of Clayton, is operated by the GEO Group under contract with the New Mexico Corrections Department, and holds up to 625 state inmates.
- New Mexico has no mandatory statewide jail inspection body. The New Mexico Association of Counties runs a voluntary jail accreditation programme; no NMAC accreditation status for Union County was found published anywhere that was opened, so state_inspection is left empty.
- New Mexico's death-in-custody reporting statute, NMSA 1978 Section 33-15-3, applies to private correctional facilities only. County jails in New Mexico are under no state death-reporting requirement, so the absence of a published death record is not a reporting failure.
- No PREA audit report, independent inspection result, inmate-housing contract, bond schedule, or phone/video-visit/commissary fee schedule appears anywhere on unionnm.us.
- Union County is governed by a three-member Board of County Commissioners: Justin Bennett (Chairman), Clay Kiesling and Lloyd 'Red' Miller. Offices at 200 Court Street, Clayton. The county's ordinance index includes 'Ordinance 28 - Correctional Gross Receipts Tax', a dedicated corrections gross receipts tax levy; the scanned PDF could not be read for the rate. The FY2025-2026 budget was adopted by Resolution 2026-09, published as a non-text scan at https://www.unionnm.us/DocumentCenter/View/169/2026-09-2025-2026-Budget-Adoption-PDF. Union County's day-to-day administration is under County Manager Luis de la Cruz.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Union 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