Shelby County, Texas — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byShelby County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameNo — neither co.shelby.tx.us nor the Sheriff's Office site scsotx.org prints a facility name. The closest are the section heading "Jail Bookings", the division heading "Corrections" and a news item addressed to "the Shelby County Jailers"
Sheriff's Office address100 Hurst Street, Center, TX 75935
RosterA Divi click-through on https://www.scsotx.org/jail-bookings/ opens https://jailroster.kologik.com/?_tx2100000 — the link is a scripted click target, not a plain anchor
BudgetGeneral Fund department 0600 COUNTY SHERIFF, $4,214,334.00 for FY2026, with INMATE HOUSING $60,000, MEALS $120,000, MEDICAL $40,000 and CONTRACT MEDICAL SERVICES $144,984. There is no separate jail department
What was triedhttps://www.co.shelby.tx.us/page/shelby.Sheriff ; https://www.co.shelby.tx.us/page/shelby.Budgets ; https://www.co.shelby.tx.us/page/shelby.Public.Notices ; https://www.scsotx.org/divisions/ ; https://www.scsotx.org/jail-bookings/
Beds and population, 2026-0859 people held in 66 rated beds

Source: Shelby County Sheriff — Divisions · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✓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 — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Shelby County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-22. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds66 (rated capacity, TCJS county jail population report, 1 August 2026)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Gerald Corbell

Published as"County Sheriff Gerald Corbell"
Address100 Hurst Street, Center, TX 75935
Phone936-598-5600 (county page); 936-598-5601 (sheriff's office site)
In office since1 January 2025, per his own statement on the Sheriff's Office site
Chief DeputyMike Hanson
Jail AdministratorTiffany Curry

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Shelby County, Texas — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

Five Justice of the Peace precincts are published; Judge Tracy Broadway holds Precinct 5 and is listed as temporary Justice of the Peace for Precinct 4 as well. The county's navigation carries a "County Court at Law" entry, but that page holds only a COVID-19 operating plan and names no judge. Both district benches sit at 200 San Augustine Street in Center.

County Judge

Allison Harbison

District Court (123rd Judicial District)

LeAnn K. Rafferty

District Court (273rd Judicial District)

James A. Payne Jr.

Justices of the Peace

Donna Hughes (Pct. 1)
Marla Denby (Pct. 2)
Melba Rodgers (Pct. 3)
Tracy Broadway (Pct. 4, temporary)
Tracy Broadway (Pct. 5)

Still needed

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

Shelby County runs two sites: the county site co.shelby.tx.us, whose Sheriff page is four lines long, and the Sheriff's Office's own site scsotx.org, which carries the roster, the divisions list and the sheriff's biography. The roster check is credited to scsotx.org as a county agency's own publication; nothing on the county domain links to it.
The roster link is fragile. On https://www.scsotx.org/jail-bookings/ the words "Click Here for Jail Roster" are a heading with no anchor tag; the destination, https://jailroster.kologik.com/?_tx2100000, is held in the page's Divi module data and only fires under JavaScript.
Budget check verified by OCR of the FY2026 Adopted Budget (https://www.co.shelby.tx.us/upload/page/2735/docs/Budgets/FY2026 Budget/FY 2026 Adopted Budget.pdf), a 108-page scan. Department 0600 COUNTY SHERIFF totals $4,214,334.00 for FY2026 against $3,956,629.00 the year before. Detention costs sit inside that one department; there is no separate jail or corrections line.
The budget's INMATE HOUSING line rises from $35,000 to $60,000 for FY2026, and TCJS recorded 12 Shelby inmates housed elsewhere on 1 August 2026 against a rated capacity of 66 — the county is paying other jurisdictions to hold people. No contract or per-diem rate is published.
The county's Public Notices page is a calendar with a "Commissioner's Court Meeting" category; no agenda or minutes documents are posted as files.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Roscoe McSwain, Precinct 2 Shannon Metcalf, Precinct 3 Stevie Smith, Precinct 4 Tom Bellmyer; County Judge Allison Harbison.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

2 people have died in the Shelby County jail since 2024.

1 by suicide

0 illness or medical

2 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them2 of 2

Deaths within the first week of arriving2

Most recent death on the state's record2024-10-05

People held, 2026-0859 in 66 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them76.3%

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 Shelby 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