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

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byCarson County Sheriff's Office (no jail page published)
County publishes a jail nameNo — the sheriff's page gives only a mailing address and phone number
What the sheriff's page offers insteadLinks out to VINELink.com and MissingKids.com only
CourthouseCarson County Courthouse, 501 Main St, Panhandle, TX 79068
What was triedhttps://www.co.carson.tx.us/ ; https://www.co.carson.tx.us/page/carson.Sheriff ; https://www.co.carson.tx.us/page/carson.Budgets ; https://www.co.carson.tx.us/page/carson.Public.Notices
Beds and population, 2026-0819 people held in 50 rated beds

Source: Carson County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

1/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Carson 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
Beds50 rated capacity (Texas Commission on Jail Standards county jail population report, 1 August 2026)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Tam Terry

TitleCarson County Sheriff
Mailing addressP.O. Box 972, Panhandle, TX 79068
Phone806-537-3511
Fax806-537-3514

Still needed

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

Source: Carson County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

The county's District Court page returned no judge information on the research date, so the district bench serving Carson County is recorded as not found from a county source.

County Judge

Dan Looten

Justices of the Peace

Kathleen Barkley — Precinct 1
Terry Chavez — Precinct 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

The Budgets page publishes county budgets from 2017-2018 through the 2026-2027 proposed budget, plus annual financial audits 2018-2024. The posted budget PDFs are scanned images, so a jail line item could not be text-searched.
The county publishes no jail page of any kind. TCJS reports a 50-bed rated capacity for Carson County.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Marvin "Jigger" Britten (Pct. 1), James Martin (Pct. 2), David Lanier (Pct. 3), Trent Taylor (Pct. 4). Court meets the 2nd and 4th Mondays at 10:00 a.m.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

1 people have died in the Carson County jail since 2022.

0 by suicide

0 illness or medical

1 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them1 of 1

Deaths within the first week of arriving1

Most recent death on the state's record2022-08-09

People held, 2026-0819 in 50 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them89.5%

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 Carson 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