The Detention Center
The county publishes no formal name for this facility.
- Operated byWaller County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameNo - the sheriff's office site has a Jail FAQ, Inmate Search, Visitation and Commissary links but no page naming the facility, and the county site names none either
- Jail address100 Sheriff R. Glenn Smith Drive, Hempstead, TX 77445 (Sheriff's Office address). Note: 'Sheriff R. Glenn Smith' is the street name, honouring a former sheriff - it is not the name of the jail
- Jail phone(979) 826-8282
- New jailThe County Judge's biography states he 'spearheaded the efforts to get a new jail, judicial annex, and Precinct 4 annex constructed' - no year, cost or bed count is published
- What was triedhttps://www.wallercountytexassheriff.org/jailFAQ ; https://www.wallercountytexassheriff.org/ ; https://www.co.waller.tx.us/page/County.Sheriff ; https://www.co.waller.tx.us/
- Beds and population, 2026-08204 people held in 225 rated beds
Source: Waller County Sheriff's Office · 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
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 found
Since then
- A new jail was built - the County Judge's published biography credits him with spearheading it, but no date, cost or bed count is published
The Sheriff
Sheriff Troy Guidry
- Published in county directory asHon. Troy Guidry
- Office address100 Sheriff R. Glenn Smith Drive, Hempstead, TX 77445
- Phone(979) 826-8282
- BackgroundFormer trainer and certified instructor for the K9 and Mounted Patrol Divisions
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Waller County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The JP Precinct 1 page publishes the name as 'Judge Sydney Joe Hester' while the county directory publishes 'Hon. Joe Hester'; the Precinct 3 page publishes 'Judge Marian E. Jackson' against the directory's 'Hon. Marian Jackson'. The Precinct 4 page names no judge at all - Ted Krenek comes from the county directory. County Court at Law No. 2 holds the general jurisdiction of both a district court and a county court at law.
County Judge
- Trey Duhon
County Courts at Law
- Bennett R. Dodson (County Court at Law No. 1)
- Elton R. Mathis (County Court at Law No. 2)
District Court (506th Judicial District)
- Gary W. Chaney
Justices of the Peace
- Hon. Joe Hester (Precinct 1)
- Hon. J.R. Woolley (Precinct 2)
- Hon. Marian Jackson (Precinct 3)
- Hon. Ted Krenek (Precinct 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
- Waller County runs two sites: the county site (co.waller.tx.us) and a separate sheriff's office site (wallercountytexassheriff.org). Neither names the jail facility.
- The sheriff's site is built on a JavaScript platform whose Jail FAQ content would not load for inspection, so bond guidance and fee rates could not be confirmed and are recorded as 'no'. The Jail FAQ page itself exists at https://www.wallercountytexassheriff.org/jailFAQ.
- Commissary, inmate phone and money deposits are all routed to accesscorrections.com; no rates are published on either county site.
- 'Sheriff R. Glenn Smith Drive' is a street named for a former sheriff. It is not the jail's name, and it should not be mistaken for one.
- Budget counted as yes: the county publishes a Financial Transparency page and the 2027 Proposed Budget directly (https://www.co.waller.tx.us/upload/page/0052/docs/2027 Proposed Budget.pdf).
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides, at the Waller County Joe Kuciemba Annex, 425 FM 1488, Hempstead.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
3 people have died in the Waller County jail since 2019.
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 Waller 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