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Texas · County seat: Sherman · Checked 2026-08-22

Grayson County

The jail, the sheriff who runs it, and the judges who decide who sits inside. Every fact below comes from a named public record. Anything not yet sourced is marked still needed rather than guessed.

The Detention Center

Grayson County Jail

Source: Grayson County — Sheriff's Office Detention Bureau · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Grayson 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.

Since then

  • Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Tony Bennie

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

Source: Sheriffs' Association of Texas — Directory D-G · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

The county Courts page lists only court coordinators for County Courts at Law 1 and 2 and for the 15th, 59th and 397th District Courts — no judge is named. The four Justice of the Peace pages each name their own judge. JP Pct. 3 states the office hears magistrate matters; JP Pct. 1 publishes a bail agreement form.

County Judge

  • Bruce Dawsey

County Courts at Law (Nos. 1 and 2)

  • Not published on the county site

District Courts (15th, 59th, 397th)

  • Not published on the county site

Justices of the Peace

  • Ginny Hampton (Pct. 1)
  • Dennis Michael (Pct. 2)
  • Damon Vannoy (Pct. 3)
  • Christina Fox (Pct. 4)
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.

Notes on the record

The record

11 people have died in the Grayson County jail since 2018.

2 by suicide
5 illness or medical
11 deaths in all, 2016 onward
Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them11 of 11
Deaths within the first week of arriving4
Most recent death on the state's record2024-04-25
People held, 2026-08378 in 407 beds
Share not convicted of the charge holding them76.2%

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 Grayson 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