The Detention Center
Rains County Sheriff's Office & Jail
- Operated byRains County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes, barely — the Sheriff page heads its address block "Rains County Sheriff's Office & Jail". No separate jail page exists
- Address313 E. North Street, Emory, TX 75440
- Jail AdministratorJeremy Caviness
- Office hoursMonday-Thursday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday 8 a.m. to noon
- What was triedhttps://www.co.rains.tx.us/page/rains.Sheriff (full link inventory: 45 county pages, none for a jail, roster, visitation, commissary or bond) ; /page/rains.Budgets ; /page/rains.Commissioners.Court ; /page/rains.Justice ; /page/rains.County.Judge ; /page/rains.8th ; /page/rains.354th
- Beds and population, 2026-0826 people held in 47 rated beds
Source: Rains County, Texas — Sheriff · 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
- Beds47 rated capacity (Texas Commission on Jail Standards Inmate Population Report, 1 August 2026); the county's own site publishes no bed count
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Michael Hopkins
- Published as"Michael Hopkins — Rains County Sheriff" on the county's Sheriff page
- Address313 E. North Street, Emory, TX 75440
- Phone903-473-3181 (fax 903-473-5071)
- Chief DeputyDavid Holman
- Jail AdministratorJeremy Caviness
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Rains County, Texas — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Rains County publishes no County Court at Law and a single Justice of the Peace, at 167 E Quitman St. Suite 101, Emory. Two district courts serve the county, the 8th and the 354th, both sitting at the Courthouse Annex, 220 W. Quitman St.
County Judge
- Brent D. Hilliard
8th District Court
- Eddie Northcutt
354th District Court
- Keli M. Aiken
Justice of the Peace
- R. Jenkins Franklin
- 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 jail information Rains County publishes is the facility label "Rains County Sheriff's Office & Jail", its street address and the name of the Jail Administrator. There is no roster, no visitation page, no commissary page, no bond page and no capacity figure anywhere on co.rains.tx.us.
- The county's Commissioners Court page carries the agenda archive; the county publishes no separate minutes page, so the same URL is recorded for both board and minutes.
- The Budgets page mixes adopted and proposed budgets (through 2025-2026) with tax rate notices going back to 2016.
- Some county staff publish two email domains, co.rains.tx.us and rainscounty.gov; both appear on the Justice of the Peace page.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Members: Brent D. Hilliard (County Judge), Jeremy Cook (Pct. 1), Mike Willis (Pct. 2), Korey Young (Pct. 3), Lori Northcutt (Pct. 4). Mailing address for all commissioners: 167 E Quitman St., Ste. 102, Emory.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
No death in the Rains County jail appears on the state's record since 2016.
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 Rains 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