The Detention Center
The county publishes no formal name for this facility.
- Operated bySchleicher County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameNo — the only jail reference on the Sheriff's Office page is the job title "Jail Administrator"; the detention staff are listed under "Corrections and Communications"
- Sheriff's Office address4 S. Divide Street, Eldorado, TX 76936
- Corrections staff publishedThree Corrections Officer / Telecommunicators are named by name on the Sheriff's Office page
- What was triedhttps://www.schleichercounty.gov/page/Sheriff ; https://www.schleichercounty.gov/page/Budget ; https://www.schleichercounty.gov/page/Public.Notices ; https://www.schleichercounty.gov/page/minutes ; https://www.schleichercounty.gov/page/sitemap
- Beds and population, 2026-086 people held in 15 rated beds
Source: Schleicher County, TX — Sheriff's Office · 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
- Beds15 (rated capacity, TCJS county jail population report, 1 August 2026)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jason Chatham
- Published as"Sheriff Jason Chatham"
- Physical address4 S. Divide Street, Eldorado, TX 76936
- Mailing addressP.O. Box 1119, Eldorado, TX 76936
- Phone325-853-2737
- Fax325-853-2713
- Jail AdministratorJerrie Escarcega
- Chief DeputyTim Sanders
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Schleicher County, TX — Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
One Justice of the Peace. The 51st District Court is run out of Tom Green County — every court contact published for it carries a co.tom-green.tx.us address. The JP page lists "Jail Credit" among the alternatives to paying a fine.
County Judge
- Charlie Bradley
District Court (51st Judicial District)
- Carmen Symes Dusek
Justice of the Peace
- Rahegyn Franke
- 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
- Schleicher runs the tidiest small-county transparency page in this group — separate agendas and minutes pages, both current to August 2026, plus check registers, treasurer reports, budgets and audits. None of it touches the jail.
- Budget check verified by OCR of the Adopted Budget accepted 09-02-2025 (https://www.schleichercounty.gov/upload/page/0095/Adopted Budget 09.02.2025.pdf), a 20-page scan. "SHERIFF DEPARTMENT" totals $1,210,523.66 and the line detail includes SALARY JAILERS $282,525.42, OVERTIME-JAILERS, and TELEPHONE EXP.-JAIL $9,000. There is no separate jail department.
- The Sheriff's Office page publishes a racial profiling policy and the 2024 racial profiling report, a complaint and compliment procedure, and named patrol and corrections staff — but no roster, no bond guidance, no visitation information and no fee schedule.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Gary Gibson, Precinct 2 Steve Nelson, Precinct 3 Kirk Griffin, Precinct 4 Chris Meador; County Judge Charlie Bradley.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
No death in the Schleicher 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 Schleicher 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