The Detention Center
Kleberg County Jail
- Operated byKleberg County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — but only inside a procurement PDF. The Sheriff page never says "jail"; the county's Inmate Telephone System RFP repeatedly says "the Kleberg County Jail" and "Kleberg County Sheriff is requesting proposals for inmate telephones and services for the Kleberg County Jail"
- Jail phone361-592-0128
- Address1500 East King Ave, Kingsville, TX 78363
- Beds160 TCJS-rated capacity; 121 held on 1 Aug 2026 (TCJS, not the county)
- Inmate telephonesThe RFP specifies 32 inmate telephones and 8 visitor telephones, 40 total, and requires all inmate calls to be recorded
- What was triedhttps://www.co.kleberg.tx.us/page/kleberg.Sheriff ; https://www.co.kleberg.tx.us/page/kleberg.County.Directory ; https://www.co.kleberg.tx.us/page/kleberg.Budgets ; https://www.co.kleberg.tx.us/page/kleberg.CommissionersCourtMinutes ; https://www.co.kleberg.tx.us/upload/page/6362/docs/INMATE%20PHONES%20RFP%20draft1.pdf
- Beds and population, 2026-08121 people held in 160 rated beds
Source: Kleberg County — Inmate Telephone System RFP (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
- Beds160 (TCJS-rated capacity, Aug 2026) — the county publishes no bed count
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Richard Kirkpatrick
- Published as"County Sheriff / Richard Kirkpatrick"
- Mailing addressP. O. Box 1360, Kingsville, TX 78364
- Sheriff's Office address1500 East King Ave, Kingsville, TX 78363 (from the county's inmate-telephone RFP)
- Phone361-595-8500
- Fax361-593-1324
- Jail phone361-592-0128 (County Officials Directory)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kleberg County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
All four JP precincts are filled and listed on one page, with separate sub-pages for Pcts. 1, 2 and 4. The county publishes no magistration plan or first-appearance schedule.
County Judge
- Rudy Madrid
County Court at Law
- Judge Jaime E. Carrillo
District Court (105th Judicial District)
- Judge Jack Pulcher
Justices of the Peace
- Judge Ventura "Sonny" Gonzalez III (Pct. 1)
- Judge Brandon Wayne Barrera (Pct. 2)
- Judge Christopher Lee (Pct. 3)
- Judge Ofelia "Ofie" Gutierrez (Pct. 4)
- 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 only place Kleberg County names its jail on its own site is a 2016 procurement document for inmate telephones. The Sheriff page is four lines of contact detail plus a link to that RFP.
- The published Commissioners Court Meeting Minutes page stops at 2013 — the most recent minutes posted are from July 2013. Current agendas appear only as "CC Meetings" items on the Public Notices calendar.
- The inmate-telephone RFP requires each vendor to "provide a detailed rate table for local, intraLATA, interLATA, and interstate calls" and to submit a commission offering on gross revenue, but no resulting rates or commission figures are published, so the fees check is "no".
- Budget check counted on the Budgets page, which posts the 2026 Adopted Budget in eleven parts.
- TCJS publishes no county-specific inspection page or report URL. Its only county-specific PDFs are non-compliance notices, and this county is not on the Non-Compliant Jails list at https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/non-compliant-jails/ as of 22 Aug 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Pct. 1 David Rosse, Pct. 2 Chuck Schultz, Pct. 3 Jerry Martinez, Pct. 4 Marcus Salinas; County Judge Rudy Madrid.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
2 people have died in the Kleberg 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 Kleberg 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