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

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byWharton County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameNo - the Sheriff page carries no facility name; the only phrase resembling one is the link text 'WCSO Detention Center Network (DCN)', which names a lookup system, not the building
Jail addressNot found - no jail address is published on the county site
Jail phoneNot found - only the Sheriff's office line 979-532-1550 is published
Custody lookup offeredTwo links: VINELink (a state/third-party service) and 'WCSO Detention Center Network (DCN)' at http://69.92.28.194:8080/DCN
DCN link testedhttp://69.92.28.194:8080/DCN did not respond when checked on 22 Aug 2026
Bond formA blank 'Appearance Bond' PDF is posted; no instructions on how to post bond accompany it
What was triedhttps://www.co.wharton.tx.us/page/wharton.Sheriff ; https://www.co.wharton.tx.us/page/wharton.Sheriff.CivilNotices ; https://www.co.wharton.tx.us/ - the site navigation has no jail or detention page at all
Beds and population, 2026-08132 people held in 168 rated beds

Source: Wharton County - County Sheriff · 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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Wharton 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
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Shannon Srubar

OfficeWharton County Sheriff's Office
Mailing addressP.O. Box 726, Wharton, TX 77488
Phone979-532-1550
Fax979-282-2849
Courthouse100 S Fulton St, Wharton, TX 77488

Still needed

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

Source: Wharton County - County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

The county site lists no County Court at Law. The Justice of the Peace page gives contact details only and says nothing about magistrate or bond-setting duties.

County Judge

Phillip Spenrath

23rd District Court

Judge John C. Maher, Jr.

329th District Court

Judge Randy Clapp

Justices of the Peace

Judge Jared Cullar - Precinct 1
Judge Glenn P. Russell - Precinct 2
Judge Donna Wessels - Precinct 3
Judge Tim Drapela - Precinct 4

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

The county site has no jail or detention page; the Sheriff page is the only place the jail is mentioned.
The custody-status link the county publishes (http://69.92.28.194:8080/DCN) did not respond when tested, so no working county roster could be confirmed.
Adopted county budgets from 2018 through 2026 plus the 2027 proposed budget are posted as PDFs on the Budgets page; the jail and sheriff appear as departments inside those documents.
No county-specific Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspection report URL could be located.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Richard Zahn, Precinct 2 Bud Graves, Precinct 3 Steven Goetsch, Precinct 4 Doug Mathews. The page gives no regular meeting time and directs the public to the Public Notices Calendar for agendas.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

1 people have died in the Wharton County jail since 2021.

0 by suicide

0 illness or medical

1 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them0 of 1

Most recent death on the state's record2021-01-15

People held, 2026-08132 in 168 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them85.6%

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 Wharton 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