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

The Detention Center

Grimes County Jail

Operated byGrimes County Sheriff's Office — Jail Division
County publishes a jail nameYes — "Grimes County Jail" on the Sheriff's Office Jail Division page
Jail phone(936) 873-6439
Approved capacity111 inmates, male and female, misdemeanour and felony
StaffingJail Lieutenant, Jail Sergeants, Jail Deputies, Courthouse Deputies, Jailers and a Nurse; all jail officers TCOLE-licensed
ProgrammesReligious and library volunteer services; diversion work programme; on-site garden project supplying the jail kitchen
Beds and population, 2026-0855 people held in 111 rated beds

Source: Grimes County Sheriff's Office — Jail Division · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓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
✗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 Grimes 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 builtDecember 1998 — "The current jail facility became operational in December of 1998"
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds111 approved by the county ("approved to house 111 inmates"); 111 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 August 2026; 55 held, 49.5% of capacity)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Donald G. Sowell

OfficeGrimes County Sheriff's Office
Address382 FM 149 W, Anderson, TX 77830
Dispatch(936) 873-2151
Jail(936) 873-6439
Records(936) 873-6442

Still needed

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

Source: Grimes County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

Grimes County has three Justice of the Peace precincts, not four. The County Court at Law was created 1 October 2017 and hears all misdemeanour cases involving incarceration in the Grimes County Jail. The county's District Court page names neither the 12th nor the 506th District Judge. After-hours emergency requests to any Justice Court are routed through Sheriff's Department dispatch.

County Judge

Joe Fauth III

County Court at Law

Tuck Moody McLain

District Courts (12th and 506th)

Not published on the county site

Justices of the Peace

Chris Acord (Pct. 1)
Lester Underwood (Pct. 2)
Mark Laughlin (Pct. 3)

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

Grimes is the only county in this group that publishes an inspection result on its own site: the Jail Division page states the jail is inspected yearly by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards plus a fire inspection and a health inspection, and that it "has passed a total of 29 consecutive inspections to date (10/21/2024)." The page publishes the claim, not the reports themselves.
The county publishes its approved bed count (111) on the Jail Division page but no daily population figure, so the capacity check is recorded as not met.
Budgets are published for every year from 2009 through 2027.
The Sheriff's Office site links to a jail FAQ section, but the target page returns 404.
Commissioners Court minutes, agendas and videos from 1 June 2022 forward are on Granicus; older records are at https://grimescountytexas.gov/agenda-minutes and https://grimes.tx.publicsearch.us/.
Grimes County does not appear on the Texas Commission on Jail Standards non-compliant jails list checked 22 August 2026 (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/non-compliant-jails/).
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Chad Mallett (Pct. 1), David Tullos (Pct. 2), Michael Raska (Pct. 3), Phillip Cox (Pct. 4).
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

1 people have died in the Grimes County jail since 2016.

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

Most recent death on the state's record2016-12-26

People held, 2026-0855 in 111 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them56.4%

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 Grimes 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