The Detention Center
Gaines County Law Enforcement Center
- Operated byGaines County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — the Sheriff page names the Gaines County Law Enforcement Center and a Chief Jailer
- Jail address305 E Avenue A, Seminole, TX 79360
- Jail phone(432) 758-9871 (24-hour dispatch)
- Custody lookupSite refers the public to VINELink, a third-party service — no county roster
- Beds and population, 2026-0859 people held in 96 rated beds
Source: Gaines County — Sheriff · 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
- Beds96 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 August 2026; 59 held, 61% of capacity)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff J.A. Vest
- OfficeGaines County Sheriff's Office
- AddressGaines County Law Enforcement Center, 305 E Avenue A, Seminole, TX 79360
- Phone(432) 758-9871 dispatch; (432) 758-5411 administration
- Chief JailerJon Luna
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Gaines County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The county's own County Judge page names no officeholder; the name here comes from the county's FY2026 approved budget. The Justice of the Peace Precinct 2 page names no judge.
County Judge
- Cindy Therwhanger
District Courts (106th)
- Reed Filley
Justices of the Peace
- Patrick "Packy" Kissick (Pct. 1)
- Not found (Pct. 2)
- 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 FY2026 approved budget's table of contents carries separate line items for 'Sheriff' (p.18) and 'Jail' (p.41), so jail funding is published even though there is no jail page.
- The Financial Transparency page also publishes check registers, CAFRs, debt reports and tax rate worksheets.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Brian Rosson (Pct. 1), Josh Elder (Pct. 2), David Murphree (Pct. 3), Biz Houston (Pct. 4) — named in the FY2026 approved budget, not on the Commissioners Court page.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the Gaines County jail since 2021.
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 Gaines 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