The Detention Center
Henderson County Jail
- Operated byHenderson County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — the Inmate Mail Procedures PDF refers to "the Henderson County Jail Facility"; the Sheriff page itself says only "Jail Phone Number"
- Monthly statistics publishedThe Sheriff's Office publishes monthly statistical reports carrying Average Daily Inmate Population, Admissions to Jail, Releases from Jail, Inmates Housed Out of County, Out of County Inmates Housed and Inmates Being Held for TDCJ
- Example figuresMarch 2025: average daily inmate population 401, admissions 311, releases 339, out-of-county inmates housed 56, held for TDCJ 50. July 2025: ADP 457. January 2026: ADP 360.
- What was triedhttps://www.henderson-county.com/250/Sheriff ; https://www.henderson-county.com/DocumentCenter/View/765 ; https://www.henderson-county.com/203/Financial-Transparency ; https://www.henderson-county.com/261/Bail-Bond-Board ; https://www.henderson-county.com/Search/Results?searchPhrase=jail
- Beds and population, 2026-08343 people held in 508 rated beds
Source: Henderson County Sheriff's Office — Inmate Mail Procedures (PDF) · 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
- Beds508 rated capacity — TCJS population report, 1 August 2026; the county publishes no bed count
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Botie Hillhouse
- Published as"Botie Hillhouse", Sheriff
- Address206-A North Murchison Street, Athens, TX 75751; P.O. Box 2601
- Phone903-675-5128; fax 903-677-6344
- Jail phone903-677-6322
- Commissary hours8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday–Friday
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Henderson County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Judge names for the courts are published in the county's staff directory rather than on the court pages themselves (https://www.henderson-county.com/m/Directory). Henderson County has five Justice of the Peace precincts.
County Judge
- Wade McKinney
County Courts at Law
- Scott Williams (County Court at Law)
- Nancy Perryman (County Court at Law 2)
District Courts
- Mark Calhoon (3rd District Court)
- Clint Davis (173rd District Court)
- R. Scott Mckee (392nd District Court)
Justices of the Peace
- Randy Daniel (Pct. 1)
- Jamie Fawns (Pct. 2)
- Tony Duncan (Pct. 3)
- Milton Adams (Pct. 4)
- Tanya Norris (Pct. 5)
- 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
- Henderson County is the only county in this group that publishes a monthly running jail population figure. Scored 'capacity' no anyway, because the county publishes population but never a bed count — the check asks for both.
- Those monthly Sheriff's Office statistical reports also disclose contract activity in raw numbers (56 out-of-county inmates housed in March 2025) but no per-diem rate or contract document, so 'contracts' is no.
- The Sheriff has no in-custody roster; the county's only records link is the Tyler Odyssey portal at https://portal-txhenderson.tylertech.cloud/PublicAccess/default.aspx.
- Budget check: approved budgets from 2011 to the 2026 Adopted Budget are published in the Archive Center under Budget (AMID=36), plus raw-format spreadsheets for several years.
- The county runs a Bail Bond Board (https://www.henderson-county.com/261/Bail-Bond-Board) listing licensed bondsmen, but publishes no instructions on how to post bond.
- Henderson County is not on the TCJS non-compliant jails list as of August 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Wendy Spivey, Precinct 2 Scott Tuley, Precinct 3 Charles (Chuck) McHam, Precinct 4 Mark Richardson; County Judge Wade McKinney.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
11 people have died in the Henderson County jail since 2018.
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 Henderson 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