Aransas County, Texas — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Aransas County Detention Center

Operated byAransas County Sheriff's Office (Corrections Department)
County publishes a jail nameYes — "Aransas County Detention Center", also called the Corrections Department.
Address308 N Live Oak St, Rockport, TX 78382-2745
Phone(361) 790-0168; fax (361) 790-0164
Physical location given for the administrative lieutenant811 E. Concho, Rockport, TX 78382
VendorsGetting Out (phone / deposits), Access Corrections and AccessCatalog (trust fund / commissary)
What was triedhttps://www.aransascounty.org/detentioncenter/ ; https://www.aransascounty.org/detentioncenter/visitation.php ; https://www.aransascounty.org/detentioncenter/inmates.php ; https://www.aransascountytx.gov/auditor/transfin.php
Beds and population, 2026-08177 people held in 212 rated beds

Source: Aransas County Detention Center · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗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 Aransas County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-22. 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
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff William "Bill" Mills

Sheriff's Office phone(361) 729-2222
Sheriff's Office address714 E Concho St., Rockport, TX 78382
Detention administrationHector Martinez, Administrative Lieutenant
NoteThe Sheriff's Office runs on a separate domain (aransascounty.org) from the county government site (aransascountytx.gov).

Still needed

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

Source: Aransas County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

The county's JP Precinct 1 page gives the office address and phone ((361) 790-0130) and explains the court's jurisdiction, but never names the sitting judge. The district-court site is the shared site for the 36th/156th/343rd districts, linked from the county's own department list.

County Judge

Ray A. Garza

County Court at Law

Richard P. Bianchi

District Courts

Starr Bauer (36th Judicial District)
Boyd W. Bauer (156th Judicial District)
Janna Whatley (343rd Judicial District)

Justices of the Peace

Not found (Pct. 1)
Diana McGinnis (Pct. 2)

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 2026-08-22

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

Aransas County splits itself across two domains — aransascountytx.gov for county government and aransascounty.org for the Sheriff's Office and Detention Center. The old aransascounty.org root now only serves a 'moved permanently' notice pointing back to aransascountytx.gov.
The Auditor's 'Financial Transparency Reports' page is titled 'Accounts Payable Reports' and links out to a Box.com folder; no adopted budget document is published on the county site itself, so 'budget' is no.
The detention center links to Getting Out, Access Corrections and AccessCatalog for phone, trust fund and commissary, but publishes no rates of its own. A commissary menu PDF is offered; no phone or video-visit rate schedule is published.
The visitation policy sets schedules and ID rules and publishes no dollar amounts.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Pct. 1-1A Jack Chaney, Pct. 2 Leslie "Bubba" Casterline, Pct. 3 Pat Rousseau, Pct. 4 Bob Dupnik; County Judge Ray A. Garza.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

3 people have died in the Aransas County jail since 2019.

0 by suicide

2 illness or medical

3 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them2 of 3

Deaths within the first week of arriving2

Most recent death on the state's record2022-07-13

People held, 2026-08177 in 212 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them78.0%

Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Aransas 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 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered