The Detention Center
Hardeman County, Texas Jail
- Operated byHardeman County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — "Hardeman County, Texas Jail" on the Sheriff page
- Jail address318 Mercer Street, Quanah, Texas 79252
- Jail phoneNot separately published; the Sheriff's Office number is (940) 663-5374
- Visiting hours3:00 pm Thursdays and 2:00 pm Saturdays, limited to 20 minutes
- Visiting rulesVisitors must be at least 17 years old; a dress code is required
- Beds and population, 2026-080 people held in 11 rated beds
Source: Hardeman 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
- Beds11 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 August 2026; 8 held, 72.7% of capacity)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Pat Laughery
- OfficeHardeman County Sheriff
- Address318 Mercer Street, P.O. Box 266, Quanah, TX 79252-0266
- Phone(940) 663-5374
- Fax(940) 663-2597
- Term as published"In Office Since 1/1/2017 Expires 12/31/2020" — the page has not been updated since that term ended
- NoteThe Sheriffs' Association of Texas directory lists him as "P. D. Laughery"
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Hardeman County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Hardeman County has no County Court at Law and one Justice of the Peace for the whole county. The 46th Judicial District Court sits in Vernon, in Wilbarger County. No bond information is published on any bench page.
County Judge
- Ronald Ingram
District Court (46th)
- Cornell Curtis
Justice of the Peace
- Kristi Bird
- 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
- Hardeman is one of five counties in this group that names its jail on its own site, and it does so on a page whose own term-of-office line expired on 31 December 2020 and has never been corrected.
- The county publishes visiting hours, an age limit and a dress code for the jail, but no bed count, no population figure, no roster, no bond guidance and no commissary or telephone rates.
- The Commissioners' Court page carries the four commissioners and a list of agendas, but the most recent agenda posted is a Special Session dated 1 August 2025, and postings are irregular — five of the eleven listed agendas are from 2021 to 2023.
- Budgets are published in numbered parts; the 2025-2026 approved budget runs to six separate documents and the proposed budget to seven.
- Hardeman 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. Randel Parker (Pct. 1), Haden Braziel (Pct. 2), Barry Haynes (Pct. 3), Rodney Foster (Pct. 4).
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Hardeman 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