The Detention Center
The county publishes no formal name for this facility.
- Operated byNolan County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameNo - the Sheriff page gives a separate jail telephone number (325-235-5487) but never names the facility.
- Sheriff's Office / jail address211 Avenger Field Rd., Sweetwater, TX 79556 - separate from the courthouse at 100 East 3rd Street
- No jail contentNo roster, visitation, bond, commissary or fee information is published anywhere on the county site
- What was triedhttps://www.co.nolan.tx.us/page/nolan.Sheriff ; https://www.co.nolan.tx.us/page/nolan.Commissioners.Court ; https://www.co.nolan.tx.us/page/nolan.Commissioners.Court.Minutes ; https://www.co.nolan.tx.us/page/nolan.Budget ; https://www.co.nolan.tx.us/page/nolan.Public.Notices
- Beds and population, 2026-0873 people held in 96 rated beds
Source: Nolan County - Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗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
- BedsNot published by the county. TCJS rates the Nolan County jail at 96 beds (Aug 1, 2026 population report).
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff James Villanueva
- Published as"Sheriff James Villanueva"
- Address211 Avenger Field Rd., Sweetwater, TX 79556
- Office phone325-235-5471
- Jail phone325-235-5487
- Fax325-235-5750
- Emailsheriff@nolanso.org
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Nolan County - Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The county's Justice of the Peace page lists one judge and gives no precinct number. The District Court page names Judge Glen Harrison but does not state the judicial district number; the county separately links the 32nd Judicial CSCD.
County Judge
- Whitley May
County Court at Law
- David Hall
District Court
- Glen Harrison
Justice of the Peace
- Angie Collier
- 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
- Commissioners Court minutes are published as dated PDFs back to at least 2021 at https://www.co.nolan.tx.us/page/nolan.Commissioners.Court.Minutes
- Adopted budgets FY2014-15 through FY2025-26 plus the FY2026-27 proposed budget are published; the FY2025-26 PDF is a scan with no extractable text, so the jail line item could not be read.
- TCJS Aug 1, 2026 population report: 73 held against 96 rated beds (76% of capacity).
- Nolan County is not on the TCJS non-compliant list as of Aug 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Pct. 1 Terry Willman, Pct. 2 Seth Mahaffey, Pct. 3 Tommy White, Pct. 4 Henry Ortega Jr.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the Nolan County jail since 2020.
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 Nolan 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