The Detention Center
Rockwall County Detention Center
- Operated byRockwall County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes — "Rockwall County Detention Center" is the mailing name published for inmate mail; the Detention Division page also calls it "the Rockwall County Jail"
- Jail address950 T.L. Townsend Dr., Rockwall, TX 75087
- Jail phone972-204-7100
- Beds (county figure)"designed to house 220 inmates", 63 employees, accepting prisoners from 7 law enforcement agencies
- Vendors namedSecurus Technologies (phone, video visitation); Access Corrections (deposits, bail payments); commissary ordered Mon/Wed/Fri
- What was triedhttps://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/87/Sheriffs-Office ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/360/Detention-Division ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/1188/Inmate-Lookup ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/1131/Inmate---Bail-Bond-Information ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/934/Inmate---Calls-Mail-Email ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/935/Inmate---How-To-Send-Money-or-Care-Packa ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/461/Inmate---Visitation-Information ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/1141/Video-Visitation ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/1130/Jail-Weekly-BookingRelease-Reports ; https://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/886/Budgets
- Beds and population, 2026-08246 people held in 491 rated beds
Source: Rockwall County — Detention Division · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓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
- BedsThe county publishes "designed to house 220 inmates" on its Detention Division page; the Texas Commission on Jail Standards lists a rated capacity of 491 as of 1 August 2026. The two figures do not agree and the county publishes no explanation.
Since then
- Not found — but the gap between the county's 220-bed design figure and the state's 491-bed rated capacity suggests the county page has not been updated; no expansion document is published
The Sheriff
Sheriff Terry Garrett
- Published as"Terry Garrett, Sheriff" in the county Staff Directory
- Sheriff's Office address972 T L Townsend Drive, Rockwall, TX 75087
- Phone972-204-7001
- Fax972-204-7009
- Jail phone972-204-7100
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Rockwall County — Staff Directory: Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Rockwall County publishes four Justice of the Peace precincts. The Courts index pages name the three district judges but not the two County Court at Law judges; those names come from the county's own Staff Directory entries (did=4 and did=41). Justice of the Peace names likewise appear only in the Staff Directory: Pct. 1 did=3, Pct. 2 did=6, Pct. 3 did=31, Pct. 4 did=32. The county also runs a Bond Coordination Department (Bond Coordinator Lacy Olvera, 972-204-6911).
County Judge
- Frank New
County Court at Law #1
- Keith Wheeler
County Court at Law #2
- Stephani Woodward
382nd District Court
- Brett Hall
439th District Court
- David Rakow
503rd District Court
- Brian Williams
Justices of the Peace
- Tony Norton (Pct. 1)
- Ben Massar (Pct. 2)
- Mark Russo (Pct. 3)
- Liana Whitten (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
- capacity is marked yes on the strength of the published 220-bed design figure. The county publishes weekly booking/release reports but no daily population count.
- The Detention Division page says the jail accepts prisoners from seven law enforcement agencies but publishes no contract and no per-diem rate, so contracts is no.
- Phone, video-visit and commissary rates are not published by the county; the pages name Securus and Access Corrections and link out to the vendors' own pricing pages. fees is therefore no.
- Adopted and proposed budgets are published for FY2015 through FY2026.
- The county's published bed count (220) conflicts with the state's rated capacity (491). Recorded here without reconciling them, since only the county figure is county-published.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Members: Frank New (County Judge), Bobby Gallana (Pct. 1), Dana K Cullins Macalik (Pct. 2), Lorne Liechty (Pct. 3), John Stacy (Pct. 4). Offices at the Historic Courthouse, 101 East Rusk Street, Suite 202.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the Rockwall County jail since 2021.
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 Rockwall 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