The Detention Center
Hays County Jail
- Operated byHays County Sheriff's Office — Corrections Bureau
- County publishes a jail nameYes — "Hays County Jail" appears in Sheriff's Office news releases and the county sitemap entry "Hays County Jail Information"
- Jail address1307 Uhland Road, San Marcos, TX 78666 (Corrections Bureau)
- Jail phone512-393-7800; Bond Information 512-393-7807 / 512-393-7690; Jail Records 512-393-7832; Visitation 512-393-7366; Jail Chaplain 512-393-7862
- Programs publishedJail-Based Competency Restoration (JBCR) program run with Hill Country MHDD Centers inside the Hays County Jail
- What was triedhttps://www.hayscountytx.gov/276/Corrections-Bureau ; https://www.hayscountytx.gov/626/Hays-County-Jail-Information ; https://www.hayscountytx.gov/279/Jail-Questions-Answers ; https://www.hayscountytx.gov/274/Bail-Bond-Information ; https://www.hayscountytx.gov/sitemap
- Beds and population, 2026-08401 people held in 633 rated beds
Source: Hays County — Corrections Bureau · 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
- ✗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 — 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
- Beds633 rated capacity — TCJS population report, 1 August 2026; the county publishes no bed count
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Anthony Hipolito
- Published as"Anthony Hipolito, Sheriff"
- ChiefBrett Bailey
- Corrections Bureau commanderCaptain John Saenz (Corrections Bureau); Captain Julie Villalpando (Support Services, Corrections Bureau)
- Sheriff's Office address810 S Stagecoach Trail, San Marcos, TX 78666
- Phone512-393-7800
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Hays County — Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Hays County runs a dedicated Magistrate Court under the District Courts, with its own Bond Information page and live-streamed proceedings; the District Court serves Hays, Caldwell and Comal Counties.
County Judge
- Ruben Becerra
County Courts at Law
- Jimmy Alan Hall (County Court-at-Law No. 1)
- Chris Johnson (County Court-at-Law No. 2)
- Elaine S. Brown (County Court-at-Law No. 3)
District Courts
- Bruce Boyer (22nd Judicial District)
- Tracie Wright-Reneau (207th Judicial District)
- Gary Steel (274th Judicial District)
- Joe Pool (428th Judicial District)
- Sherri K. Tibbe (453rd Judicial District, Local Administrative Judge)
- Alicia Key (483rd Judicial District)
- Karl Hays (Associate Judge, Family Court)
Magistrate Court
- Ben Moore (Chief Judge / Criminal Associate Judge)
- Matt Burns (Associate Judge)
- B. Jarden-Holter (Associate Judge)
- Jeffrey Weatherford (Associate Judge)
Justices of the Peace
- Jo Anne Prado (Pct. 1-1, San Marcos)
- Maggie Moreno (Pct. 1-2, San Marcos)
- Beth Smith (Pct. 2-1, Kyle)
- J.R. Mendoza (Pct. 2-2, Kyle)
- Andrew Cable (Pct. 3, Wimberley)
- John Burns (Pct. 4, Dripping Springs)
- Sandra Bryant (Pct. 5, Buda)
- 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
- One of only two counties in this group that publishes a death in custody. The Sheriff's Office news flash of 17 August 2026, "Hays County Sheriff's Office Investigating Custodial Death at the Hays County Jail", reports an inmate found unresponsive at about 3:26 a.m. on 16 August 2026 after a normal check at 3:12 a.m., pronounced dead by the Justice of the Peace, with DPS conducting the criminal investigation and the Sheriff's Office of Professional Responsibility the internal one.
- The county publishes a PREA page at https://www.hayscountytx.gov/422/PREA, but it belongs to the Juvenile Detention Center, not the adult jail; no PREA audit for the Hays County Jail was found, so 'prea' is no.
- 'roster' is no: the only in-custody lookup is the Tyler Odyssey "Court & Jail Public Records" portal (https://portal-txhays.tylertech.cloud/PublicAccess/), a court-records search rather than a published in-custody list.
- Bond guidance is published twice: the Magistrate Court Bond Information page explains personal, cash and surety bonds, and the Bail Bond Information page publishes the Bail Bond Board rules and the list of authorized bail bond companies.
- Hays County is not on the TCJS non-compliant jails list as of August 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Debbie Ingalsbe, Precinct 2 Dr. Michelle Cohen, Precinct 3 Morgan Hammer, Precinct 4 Walt Smith; County Judge Ruben Becerra.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
2 people have died in the Hays County jail since 2022.
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 Hays 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