The Detention Center
Gillespie County Jail
- Operated byGillespie County Sheriff's Office, Support Services Division
- County publishes a jail nameYes — the Sheriff's Office lists 'County Jail' under its Support Services Division and runs a County Jail Visitation page
- Jail addressLaw Enforcement Center, 1601 East Main Street, Fredericksburg, TX 78624
- Jail phone830-997-7585 (option 3, ext 2) or 830-990-8793 (option 2)
- Remote visitation rate$0.30 per minute through NCIC; onsite visits free by appointment
- Beds and population, 2026-0873 people held in 96 rated beds
Source: Gillespie County — Support Services Division · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
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; 73 held, 76% of capacity, including 4 contract inmates)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Christopher "Chris" Ayala
- OfficeGillespie County Sheriff's Office
- Address1601 East Main Street, Law Enforcement Center, Fredericksburg, TX 78624
- Phone830-997-7585
- Chief DeputyBryan Philips
- Published duty"Taking charge of and responsibility for the county jail and prisoners"
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Gillespie County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The county's Government/Departments listing has no District Court page, so no district judge is recorded from a county source. The JP overview page states that JPs perform magistrate functions including issuing warrants and conducting preliminary hearings.
County Judge
- Daniel Jones
County Court at Law
- Christopher G. Nevins
Justices of the Peace
- JD Hickman (Pct. 1)
- Steven T. Wetz (Pct. 2)
- Richard P. Priess (Pct. 3)
- Todd A. Metzger (Pct. 4)
- 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
- Gillespie is the only county in this group that publishes an actual jail charge: remote video visitation at $0.30 a minute, payable by the visitor or from the inmate's account. Messaging is also charged but no rate is given, and no commissary or phone rate is published.
- Cash bond instructions are published on the same page: full amount by cashier's check or money order payable to the Gillespie County Sheriff's Office, no cash or personal checks, valid ID required.
- Adopted budget FY2025-26 and proposed budget FY2026-27 are published, with earlier years in the archive and external audit reports back to FY2020-21.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Charles Olfers (Pct. 1), Keith Kramer (Pct. 2), Charles "Chuck" Jenschke (Pct. 3), Don Weinheimer (Pct. 4).
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the Gillespie 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 Gillespie 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