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

The Detention Center

Regional Jail

Operated byZapata County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail namePartly — the county directory lists a 'Regional Jail' and a separate 'Women's Jail'; no fuller formal facility name is published
Regional Jail address2301 Kennedy, Zapata, TX
Regional Jail phone956-765-8615 (fax 956-765-3242)
Women's Jail7th Ave & Hidalgo Blvd, Zapata, TX — 956-765-9981
Operator basisSheriff page states the sheriff takes charge of the county jail; no private contractor is named anywhere on the county site
Custody lookupCounty site refers the public to VINELink (https://www.vinelink.com/vinelink/siteInfoAction.do?siteID=44900), not a county roster
What was triedhttps://www.co.zapata.tx.us/page/zapata.Sheriff ; https://www.co.zapata.tx.us/page/zapata.Directory ; https://www.co.zapata.tx.us/page/zapata.Jail (403 / no such page)
Beds and population, 2026-08192 people held in 240 rated beds

Source: Zapata County — Directory · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗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 Zapata 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 Ramon Montes

OfficeZapata County Sheriff's Office
Address200 E. 7th Ave., Ste. 415, Zapata, TX 78076
Phone956-765-9960
Fax956-765-9941
Statutory duty citedCounty site lists 'taking charge of and responsibility for the county jail and prisoners' and 'accepting bail for prisoners in his custody'

Still needed

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

Source: Zapata County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

No County Court at Law is listed. The Constitutional County Court, presided over by the County Judge, hears probate, guardianship and Class A and B misdemeanors (https://www.co.zapata.tx.us/page/zapata.County.Judge.Court). The 49th District Judge is elected by the voters of Webb and Zapata counties.

County Judge / Constitutional County Court

Joe Rathmell

49th Judicial District Court

Joe Lopez

Justices of the Peace

Anna Guerra — Precinct 1
Olga M. Bruni — Precinct 2
Fernando Muñoz — Precinct 3
Ramon Benavides — 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

'named' marked yes on a weak basis: the jail appears only as directory entries 'Regional Jail' and 'Women's Jail'. There is no jail page and no formal facility name anywhere on the county site.
Zapata County has no dedicated jail or detention page; the Sheriff page carries no roster, bond, fee, capacity or inspection material.
Budget marked yes on the published adopted county budget (FY2025-2026: https://www.co.zapata.tx.us/upload/page/6379/docs/Financial/Budgets/budget_approved_fy2025-2026.pdf). That PDF returned no machine-readable text, so a distinct jail line item could not be confirmed by opening it. Budgets are archived back to FY2010-2011.
Agendas are posted regularly (e.g. https://www.co.zapata.tx.us/upload/page/6397/docs/Agendas/FY2025-2026/agenda_december08.2025.pdf) with an archive covering 2008-2025 at https://www.co.zapata.tx.us/page/zapata.AgendaArchive
No county-specific TCJS inspection report could be located; Zapata is not on the current TCJS non-compliant list.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 David R. Moya (2025- ), Precinct 2 Pedro Morales (2023- ), Precinct 3 Jose A. Solis (2021- ), Precinct 4 Roberto Garza (2023- ).
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

No death in the Zapata County jail appears on the state's record since 2016.

0 by suicide

0 illness or medical

0 deaths in all, 2016 onward

People held, 2026-08192 in 240 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them15.1%

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 Zapata 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