The Detention Center
McLennan County Jail
- Operated byMcLennan County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — the Sheriff's Office page uses "McLennan County Jail" in its inmate-mail example and "McLennan County Jail - Bond Office Lobby"; the staff directory lists the facility as "Jail (Highway 6)".
- Second named facilityShepherd Mullens Correctional Visitation Center (visitation centre named on the Sheriff's Office page)
- Jail phone254-757-2555 (listed as "Jail Highway 6")
- County address501 Washington Avenue, Waco, TX 76701
- Inmate mailDigitally delivered via TextBehind — PO Box 247, Phoenix, MD 21131
- Inmate communication vendorGettingOut / Go Visit (no rates published)
- What was triedhttps://www.mclennan.gov/185/Sheriffs-Office ; https://www.mclennan.gov/226/Phone ; https://www.mclennan.gov/directory.aspx?did=42 ; https://www.mclennan.gov/200/Bonds ; https://www.mclennan.gov/1101/Prison-Rape-Elimination-Act-PREA
- Beds and population, 2026-081,376 people held in 1,774 rated beds
Source: McLennan County — Sheriff's Office · 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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Parnell McNamara
- Published as"Sheriff Parnell McNamara" on the county's Sheriff's Office phone list
- Sheriff's Office phone254-757-5095
- Dispatch254-757-5222
- Jail (Highway 6) phone254-757-2555
- Warrant Division254-757-5107
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: McLennan County — Sheriff's Office Phone Numbers · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Judge names for the district courts are not printed on the District Judges landing page; they appear only in the county staff directory (https://www.mclennan.gov/directory.aspx), department ids 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 and 106. JPs are the magistrates who set bond at first appearance in Texas.
County Judge
- Scott M. Felton
County Courts at Law
- Vikram Deivanayagam (County Court at Law)
- Thomas Bradley ("Brad") Cates (County Court at Law No. 2)
- J. Patrick Atkins (County Court at Law No. 3)
District Courts
- Thomas West (19th District Court)
- Susan Kelly (54th District Court)
- Peter Rusek (74th District Court)
- Gina Long (170th District Court)
- Ryan Luna (414th District Court)
- Alan Bennett (474th District Court)
- Virgil Bain (Associate Criminal Court Judge)
- Phillip Arrien (Associate Judge, 3rd Administrative Judicial Region)
Justices of the Peace
- Dianne Hensley (Pct. 1, Place 1)
- Gary W. "Bull" Durham (Pct. 1, Place 2)
- James E. Lee, Jr. (Pct. 2)
- David W. Pareya (Pct. 3)
- Brian Richardson (Pct. 4)
- LucyAnn Sanchez-Miramontez (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
- Roster: the Sheriff's Office page carries a "Current Inmate Listing" link (https://apps.co.mclennan.tx.us/apps/injail.pdf, "updated once every hour") and an online mugshot search at https://webapps.co.mclennan.tx.us/mugshots/ (opened, works). The injail.pdf itself would not load from this network on repeated attempts; the mugshot search did.
- PREA: https://www.mclennan.gov/1101/Prison-Rape-Elimination-Act-PREA explains what the federal statute is, in English and Spanish, and links a copy of the Act. It publishes no audit result for the McLennan County Jail, so the check is "no".
- No bed count, daily population, in-custody death report, independent inspection result, inter-agency housing contract or phone/commissary rate is published anywhere the county site was searched.
- Budget page carries adopted and proposed budgets back to FY 2014-15.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Jim Smith, Precinct 2 Donis "D.L." Wilson, Precinct 3 Will Jones, Precinct 4 Ben Perry; County Judge Scott Felton.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
14 people have died in the McLennan County jail since 2017.
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 McLennan 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