The Detention Center
Bosque County Jail
- Operated byBosque County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — 'The Bosque County Jail and Sheriff's Office is located at 266 FM 2840 in Meridian, TX'
- Jail administratorJail Captain Darren Artzt
- Size64-bed facility housing men and women
- Holds other agencies' prisonersYes — the Sheriff's Office says it contracts with other law enforcement agencies for out-of-county inmates, but publishes no rates
- Beds and population, 2026-0857 people held in 64 rated beds
Source: Bosque County Sheriff's Office — Jail · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗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
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds64 (Sheriff's Office jail page, and 64 rated capacity in the TCJS population report of 1 Aug 2026)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Trace Hendricks
- OfficeBosque County Sheriff's Office
- Address266 FM 2840, Meridian, TX 76665
- Phone254-435-2362
- Detention and booking254-435-9966
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Bosque County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The 220th Judicial District Court serves Bosque, Comanche and Hamilton Counties. The county's own JP page states the JPs magistrate adult and juvenile offenders.
County Judge
- Cindy Vanlandingham
County Court at Law
- Luke Giesecke
District Court (220th)
- Shaun Carpenter
Justices of the Peace
- Jeff Hightower
- Michele Valdez
- 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
- Commissioners: Billy Hall (Pct 1), Terry Townley (Pct 2), Larry "Shotgun" Philipp (Pct 3), Gary Liardon (Pct 4).
- The jail description sits on sheriffbosquecounty.com, the Sheriff's Office site that the county's own Sheriff page links to as 'Bosque County Sheriff Website'.
- capacity marked no: the bed count is published but no daily population figure is.
- contracts marked no: the Sheriff's Office says it houses out-of-county inmates when space allows, but publishes no contracts and no per-diem rates.
- The Sheriff's jail page does describe magistration within 24 hours and how bond is set, but gives no instructions on how a family member posts bond, so bond_info is marked no.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the Bosque County jail since 2025.
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 Bosque 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