Jim Wells County, Texas — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byJim Wells County Sheriff's Department
County publishes a jail nameNo. The Sheriff page speaks only of "operation of the county jail facility" and links to a "Current Jail Roster"; no proper name for the facility appears anywhere on the county site.
Roster"Click here to see the Current Jail Roster" links off-site to http://jwcs.mvl-dev.com/ (a Platinum Webjail application)
What was triedhttps://www.co.jim-wells.tx.us/page/co.county.sheriff ; https://www.co.jim-wells.tx.us/page/co.county.directory ; https://www.co.jim-wells.tx.us/page/co.financial.transparency ; https://www.co.jim-wells.tx.us/page/sitemap
Beds and population, 2026-0836 people held in 88 rated beds

Source: Jim Wells County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✓Who is in custody
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Jim Wells 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 builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds88 rated capacity (Texas Commission on Jail Standards Inmate Population Report, August 2026 — a state source, not the county's)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Joseph Guy Baker

Published as"Sheriff Joseph Guy Baker"
Office300 N Cameron Street, Alice, TX 78332 (mailing P.O. Box 1286, Alice, TX 78333)
Phone361-668-0341; Fax 361-668-0569
Bond noteCounty page states "The bail conditions on the prisoners are usually set by the magistrates, mostly the justices of the peace."

Still needed

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

Source: Jim Wells County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

The county's Justices of the Peace page lists Precincts 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6; no Precinct 2 JP is published. JPs are the magistrates who set bond at first appearance in Texas, and the county's own Sheriff page says so.

County Judge

Pedro "Pete" Trevino, Jr.

County Court at Law

Rumaldo Solis, Jr

District Court

Michael V. Garcia (79th Judicial District)

Justices of the Peace

Richard DeLeon (Pct. 1)
Matthew Schmidt (Pct. 3)
Sylvia I. Johnson (Pct. 4)
McKenzie Flick (Pct. 5)
Noe Cadena (Pct. 6)

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

The roster is hosted off-site at jwcs.mvl-dev.com and is reached only from the county Sheriff page (https://www.co.jim-wells.tx.us/page/co.county.sheriff). It is a JavaScript application, so its contents could not be read directly, but it is the roster the county points the public to.
Adopted budgets 2019–2026 and Annual Financial Reports back to 2008 are on the Financial Transparency page; e.g. https://www.co.jim-wells.tx.us/page/open/2277/0/2026%20Adopted%20Budget%20.pdf
TCJS publishes no county-specific inspection report page; Jim Wells County does not appear on the TCJS Non-Compliant Jails list as of this check.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 George Aguilar, Precinct 2 Ventura Garcia, Jr., Precinct 3 Renee Kirchoff Chapa, Precinct 4 Wicho Gonzalez; County Judge Pedro "Pete" Trevino, Jr.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

3 people have died in the Jim Wells County jail since 2016.

1 by suicide

1 illness or medical

3 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them3 of 3

Deaths within the first week of arriving2

Most recent death on the state's record2024-02-09

People held, 2026-0836 in 88 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them80.6%

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 Jim Wells 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