Canadian County, Oklahoma — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Canadian County Jail (the Sheriff's Office site also labels the same facility 'Detention Center' in its navigation and divisions list)

Operated byCanadian County Sheriff's Office — a county office, NOT a public trust or jail authority
Address304 N. Evans, El Reno, OK 73036
Bed capacity194 inmate beds
Average daily population'approximately 300 inmates in 2017' — the county's own published ADP figure is roughly 55% above its bed count and is nearly a decade stale
Staffing35 full-time Detention Officers and Deputies
Jail AdministratorMajor Kristie Carter (carterk@ccsheriff.net)
Jail phone405-422-3188 (jail information page); (405) 262-3434 listed as office number

Source: Canadian County — official source · checked August 21, 2026

Transparency rating

5/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✓Beds and daily population
✓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
✗How to post bond — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Canadian County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked August 21, 2026. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds194 (source:

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Chris West

NoteConfirmed by the Oklahoma Sheriffs' Association at . The Sheriff's Office maintains its own site at (the county links to it at Note ccsheriff.net sits behind bot-protection that intermittently blocks automated retrieval.

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Canadian County Sheriff's Office · checked August 21, 2026

The Judges

Oklahoma elects its district judges in nonpartisan elections. District and associate district judges set bond and decide who waits in this jail.

District Court, Judicial District 26

Hon. Paul Hesse — District Judge, 26th Judicial District — (405) 295-6203
Hon. Khristan Strubhar — District Judge, 26th Judicial District — (405) 295-6208
Hon. Bob Hughey — Associate District Judge (chambers: Gary E. Miller Children's Justice Center, 7905 E. Hwy. 66, El Reno, OK 73036, (405) 264-5530)
Hon. Lory Dewey — Special Judge — (405) 295-6211
Hon. David Halley — Special Judge — Courtroom 3
Hon. Erin Jones-Slatev — Special Judge — (405) 295-6049

Canadian County Courthouse, 301 N. Choctaw, El Reno, OK 73036 (the Associate District Judge sits at the Gary E. Miller Children's Justice Center, 7905 E. Hwy.

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 August 21, 2026

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

BEST DISCLOSURE IN THIS GROUP — 5 of 10 checks. Canadian County is the only county here that publishes a bed count, a jail budget and its inmate-housing contracts.
OVERCROWDING ON THE COUNTY'S OWN NUMBERS: the county publishes 194 beds against an average daily population of 'approximately 300' — but that ADP figure is dated 2017 and has not been refreshed on a page still live in 2026. A reader cannot tell the current population from any county source.
JAIL BUDGET IS REAL AND TRACEABLE: Canadian County publishes its annual Estimate of Needs (county budget) for FY2019-20 through FY2025-26 in the Archive Center via The FY2025-26 General Fund document (direct file: carries a discrete 'Dept: 3400, County Jail' appropriation — salaries, maintenance & o…
CONTRACTS WITHOUT PRICES: the jail information page states Canadian County contracts with Grant, Dewey, Washita, Ellis and Pottawatomie County facilities for overflow housing. This is the county paying OTHERS to hold its people, and no per-diem rate is published for any of the five.
NOT A PUBLIC TRUST: unlike some Oklahoma counties, Canadian County's jail is run directly by the Sheriff's Office. The county's public trusts (Educational Facilities Authority, Housing Finance Authority, Public Facilities Authority) do not include a jail or criminal justice authority.
DEAD DISCLOSURE SURFACE: is a live 'Jail FAQs Hub' page that returns 'we couldn't find any FAQs matching your search' — so the natural place for bond-posting information is empty.
Canadian County runs a full CivicPlus/CivicEngage site — by far the most complete in this group.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Canadian 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.

The sheriff is on your ballot

The county election board runs the polling place in Canadian County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the Oklahoma State Election Board and vote.gov.

Names verified August 21, 2026 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered