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

The Detention Center

Kiowa County Detention Center

Operated byKiowa County Sheriff
Where the name comes fromThe name 'Kiowa County Detention Center' appears in the county's own voter-approved sales tax purpose as quoted in the FY2024 state audit; the county website itself publishes no jail page and never names the facility
Dedicated fundingOne percent (1%) county sales tax approved effective Oct. 1, 2023, set to expire Sept. 30, 2048
What the tax pays forConstruction, renovation, equipping and improvement of a Kiowa County Detention Center and its facilities located within Kiowa County, and/or payment of debt service and related financing costs on obligations issued for that purpose
Jail Debt Payments fund FY2024 disbursem$489,716
Sheriff's office address301 S. Jefferson, Hobart, OK 73651

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

Transparency rating

0/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Kiowa 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 byOne percent (1%) county sales tax approved by Kiowa County voters effective Oct. 1, 2023 and set to expire Sept. 30, 2048 - a 25-year pledge.
BedsNot found

Since then

2023 sales tax measure funds construction/renovation of a detention center - a 25-year 1% levy running to 2048, with $489,716 already disbursed from the Jail Debt Payments fund in FY2024; no cost, bed count or completion date is published b…

The Sheriff

Sheriff Joe Janz

NoteWritten by the county as 'Joe Janz / Sheriff', 301 S. Jefferson, Hobart, OK 73651, 580-726-3265. Also in the county directory with email kw1@kiowaso.com. Corroborated by the SAI FY2024 Kiowa County financial audit ('County Sheriff - Joe Janz') and .

Still needed

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

Source: Kiowa 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 3

Associate District Judge Rick Marsh (Kiowa County)
District Judge Rafe Hall (resident of Jackson County; serves the whole 3rd District)

Kiowa County Courthouse, 316 S. Main, Hobart, OK 73651 (Court Clerk Aimee Vance, P.O. Box 854, Hobart, OK 73651)

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

The county website is live and reasonably complete for other offices - it has a full staff directory, a Sheriff's Office page and a commissioners page - but it has NO jail or detention page whatsoever.
A 25-year, 1% county sales tax for a detention center took effect Oct. 1, 2023 and runs to 2048, with debt service already being paid, yet the county publishes nothing about the project: no cost, no bed count, no bond documents, no timeline.
The county's Sheriff's Office page contains only a name, address and phone number - no jail information of any kind.
County site links out to for its District Court page, but that OSCN page is behind a Cloudflare CAPTCHA and could not be read.
OSDH jail inspection reports are published only inside a JavaScript-gated Box folder linked from ; the listing could not be enumerated without a browser.
Court data comes from the Oklahoma Supreme Court's 2026 Judicial Directory PDF on oscn.net.
No true minutes archive. The county publishes commissioner meeting notices as dated WordPress posts (e.g. 'County Commissioners - Regular Meeting - Aug. 17, 2026', 'County Commissioners - Special Meeting - Aug.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Kiowa 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 Kiowa 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