The Detention Center
Lubbock County Detention Center
- Operated byLubbock County Sheriff's Office (Detention Division)
- County publishes a jail nameYes — "Lubbock County Detention Center" throughout the Sheriff's Office site; the county site's own page is headed "Lubbock County Jail Roster"
- Address3502 N. Holly Ave., Lubbock, TX 79403
- Rosterhttps://publicrecords.lubbockcounty.gov/JailRoster — real-time; also PDF and Excel exports
- VisitationSmart Communications / smartinmate.com; on-site 1 per person per inmate daily, remote visits paid
- Money on accountaccesscorrections.com (facility 20172) or lobby kiosk; phone-only funds via icsolutions.com
- Inmate mailScanned by Smart Communications — routed to PO Box 9136, Seminole, FL 33775; legal mail to PO Box 10535, Lubbock
- MagistrationInitial Appearance at least twice a day at the Detention Center; live-streamed, not archived
- Beds and population, 2026-081,264 people held in 1,530 rated beds
Source: Lubbock County Sheriff's Office — Inmate F.A.Q. · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓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
- ✗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
- Beds1,530 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 Aug 2026); 1,264 held that day, 82.6% of capacity — not published by the county itself
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Kelly S. Rowe
- Published as"Kelly Rowe" on the county Sheriff page; "Kelly S. Rowe, Sheriff, Lubbock County" on the Sheriff's Office site
- Sheriff's Office712 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79401 (mailing 79408)
- Detention Center3502 N. Holly Ave., Lubbock, TX 79403
- Detention Center phone806-775-7009; LSODetention@Lubbockcounty.gov
- StructureTwo divisions — Law Enforcement and Detention — each under a Chief Deputy and Assistant Chief Deputy; over 500 staff
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Lubbock County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The Sheriff's Office states that magistrates conduct Initial Appearance at the Detention Center at least twice a day and that bond settings are posted to the online jail roster once set. Criminal Associate Judges and the JPs are the benches that sit at magistration.
County Judge
- Curtis Parrish
County Courts at Law
- Mark J. Hocker (County Court at Law No. 1)
- Tom W. Brummett (County Court at Law No. 2)
- Benjamin Webb (County Court at Law No. 3)
District Courts
- John C. Grace (72nd)
- Phillip Hays (99th)
- Laura Beth Fossett (137th)
- Douglas H. Freitag (140th)
- Les Hatch (237th)
- William R. Eichman II (364th)
Associate and specialty judges
- Jaime O. Lopez (Associate Judge)
- Kelley Tesch (Child Protection Court)
- Kara Darnell (Child Protection Court)
- Meg Jordan (Child Support Court)
- Shelly Marshall (Child Support Court)
- Melissa Jo McNamara (Criminal Associate Judge)
- Cryctal Spradley (Criminal Associate Judge)
Justices of the Peace
- Betty Dills (Pct. 1)
- Susan Rowley (Pct. 2)
- Francisco Gutierrez (Pct. 3)
- Lance Cansino (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
- Most transparent jail in this group: real-time roster in three formats, a detailed inmate FAQ, live-streamed initial appearances, and an explicit pointer to the TCJS complaint process.
- Bond guidance is concrete — bond in full at the Detention Center bond window or through a surety; bond settings appear on the roster once set.
- Fees fail the check on a technicality that matters: the county names every vendor (Smart Communications, Access Corrections, IC Solutions, Access Securepak) and says there is "a cost associated", but publishes no rate for a phone call, a remote video visit or a commissary item.
- The TCJS report shows Lubbock held 56 male and 10 female federal inmates and 7 in-state contract inmates on 1 Aug 2026, and had 52 of its own inmates housed elsewhere. No contract or per-diem rate for any of that is published on the county site.
- A site search of lubbocksheriff.com for "PREA" returns no PREA page or audit report.
- TCJS does not publish a per-county inspection page or routine inspection report online; the only county-level TCJS documents found are the statewide Inmate Population Report (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/PopReportCurrent.xlsx) and the Non-Compliant Jails list (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/non-compliant-jails/), which did not list this county as of 22 Aug 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Mike Dalby (2025–), Precinct 2 Jason Corley (2025–), Precinct 3 Cary Shaw (2025–), Precinct 4 Jordan Rackler (2023–); County Judge Curtis Parrish (2019–). Voting sessions 2nd and 4th Monday, 10:00 a.m., 904 Broadway, 5th floor.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
19 people have died in the Lubbock County jail since 2019.
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 Lubbock 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