Facility Information

The Jim Wells County Jail, located in Alice, Texas, is the local jail facility for Jim Wells County, Texas.  Like most county-level jails in Texas, the Jims Wells County Jail is run by the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office.  The Jim Wells County Sheriff is Daniel J. Bueno.  It is the primary jail facility for the various local law enforcement agencies in Jim Wells County.  In addition, the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office provides training for many local law enforcement agencies.

The Jim Wells County Sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer for Jim Wells County.  The Sheriff has a range of duties that include the operation of the jail and handling the safety or the inmates, as well as traffic enforcement, and criminal investigations.  In addition, the sheriff provides security for the courthouse, which includes district and county courts.  The sheriff is responsible for helping serve subpoenas, and is the official in charge of accepting bail for prisoners that are in the sheriff’s office’s custody.  While the sheriff is responsible for accepting bail, the sheriff does not set bail; bail and any bail conditions are set by magistrates, including justices of the peace.  The sheriff is also responsible for selling forfeited property, which may be property that has been sold for failure to pay property taxes as well as property sold to satisfy civil judgments.

The Jim Wells County Jail is a temporary detention facility.  It holds multiple different types of inmates.  It is the local jail facility for inmates who have been arrested by the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office or other local law enforcement agencies for the commission of a crime anywhere in Jim Wells County.  It holds these detainees until they are released from jail.  This release can occur for a number of reasons.  Inmates may be released without being charged.  They may be charged and released without bail.  They may be released on bail.

Inmates may also be in Jim Wells County Jail because they have been convicted of a crime, but are still at the local jail facility.  Inmates may be in jail because they have been convicted, but are awaiting sentencing.  Inmates may also be sentenced to time in the Jim Wells County Jail facility.

Jim Wells County Jail is a relatively small facility because Jim Wells County is a sparsely populated county.  There are 88 beds in the county jail.  In keeping with the custom in local county jail facilities, Jim Wells County Jail may occasionally house inmates from other counties if nearby counties are experiencing overcrowding.  Likewise, inmates from other counties may be in the Jim Wells County Jail if those counties are experiencing overcrowding challenges.

Jim Wells County Jail Addresses

Physical Address

Jim Wells County Jail
300 N Cameron St.
Alice, Texas 78332

Mailing Address

Jim Wells County Jail
P.O. Box 1286
Alice, Texas 78333

Inmate Mailing Address

Inmate Name
Jim Wells County Jail
P.O. Box 1286
Alice, Texas 78333

The Jim Wells County Jail does not provide detailed rules for inmate mail.  Therefore, if you have any questions about inmate mail, it is important for you to contact the jail prior to sending the mail.  This is because sending an inmate items that are considered contraband can result in seizure of the mail, disciplinary action for the inmate, criminal charges for the inmate, and even criminal charges for the sender.  To contact the jail, call the sheriff’s office at 361-668-0341.

All inmate mail must include the sender’s full name and mailing address in the top left hand corner, which is generally reserved for return addresses.  Inmate mail without return addresses may be destroyed and not delivered to the inmate.  In addition, the mail should come from the sender listed in the return address; do not send inmates mail from third parties, except for minor children in your household.

You may send various types of mail to inmates at Jim Wells County Jail.  This includes premetered postcards that already have their postage on them.  You may be able to send other types of postcards with images or pictures on them, but the pictures should not otherwise violate inmate mail rules or the postcards may be destroyed and not sent to the inmate.

Inmates may also receive mail in envelopes, but they must be plain envelopes, ink, and paper.  However, this rules are subject to change.  Because of the risk of envelopes being used to smuggle drugs and other contraband into jail facilities, many facilities are moving towards restricting the use of envelopes.  Therefore, prior to mailing an inmate at Jim Wells County Jail anything in an envelope, you may want to verify with the jail that they have not changed their policy since this article was written.

While inmates are generally able to receive newspapers, magazines, and books while in jail, they cannot receive these from individuals.  Instead, these materials must be mailed from their publishers or from an approved bookstore.  There are, however, some important limitations on the type of published materials that inmates may receive.  Inmates cannot receive books, newspapers, or magazines that have material that is profane, sexual, violent, or focused on weapons.  Some books with questionable content may not be permitted.  In addition, the format of the book is important.  Books should be soft-back or paper-back books, not hard-backed books.  In addition, books should not contain images or content that are violent, pornographic, or obscene.

Inmates cannot receive care packages from individuals outside of the jail, and, as of the time of this article, Jim Wells County Jail did not have a specific care package provider.  However, as more jails are contracting with care package providers, you can contact the jail to find out if it has contracted to provide care packages.

The following items are also prohibited in inmate mail: stickers, stamps not used for postage for the mail, musical greeting cards, greeting cards with hard plastic or metal parts, paper with any types of stains, bodily fluids, foreign substances, news clippings, or mail written with anything other than pencil or ballpoint pen.

Phone Numbers

The Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office main number is 361-668-0341.  The fax number for the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office is 361-668-0569.

Jim Wells County Jail Roster

The Jim Wells County Jail has an inmate roster that you can search in a number of different ways.   The default setting for the inmate roster is for the inmates to be presented in order of the most recently arrested or booked to the one arrested or booked the furthest in the past.  However, you can also sort inmates by first name, last name, booking date, arrest date, or arresting agency.  In each inmate record, you see the inmate listed by last name, then first name.  The record also contains a booking photos or mugshot, booking number, booking date, arresting agency, and arrest date.  If you select an inmate’s record, you pull up a more detailed informational page for the inmate.  That page includes the inmate’s date of birth, height, weight, eye color, hair color, gender, race, arrest date, the list of offenses, the bond amount (if any) for each offense), and the offense type.

Inmate Bookings/ Recent Arrests

The Jim Wells County Jail’s has an inmate roster is set up as an inmate booking/ recent arrest roster in its default format.  In this format, it presents the most recently arrested or booked inmates first.  However, you can also change search parameters to allow you to search for inmates by details other than booking date.  The search fields include: first name, last name, booking date, arrest date, and arresting agency.  In the full format, you get a snapshot version of an inmate’s record that includes first and last name, booking photo, booking number, booking date, arresting agency, and arrest date.  You can also select an inmate’s record to get more detailed information on the inmate, including demographic information such as date-of-birth, height, weight, race, gender, eye color, and hair color.  You can also find out the charges against a defendant and the bond amount, if applicable, for each charge.

Mugshots

Although the Jim Wells County Jail does not maintain a specific mugshot database, you can find booking photos for inmates held in the jail by using the jail’s inmate roster.  In addition to mugshots, the inmate roster has information such as: the offense charged; the bond amounts if applicable; the inmate’s date-of-birth; a physical description of the inmate including height, weight, eye color, race, gender, and hair color; the arrest date; the arresting agency; and the booking date.

Jail Visitation

The Jim Wells County Jail does not provide detailed visitation information for their jail facility.  Therefore, you want to contact the jail at 361-668-0341 to check with the jail before attempting visitation. This is important even when jails publicize their visitation schedules, because visitation is always subject to cancellation.  In addition, as a visitor, you may be required to fill out an application and be approved prior to exercising visitation.  Generally, felons are not allowed to visit inmates, nor are codefendants or people who have been incarcerated in the jail facility in the last six months.

Generally, inmates are permitted two adult visitors.  Minor visitors must be accompanied by a parent of a legal guardian.  All adult visitors must be able to provide government-issued photo identification in order to visit.  Examples of this identification include: driver’s licenses, state-issued identification cards, passports, military identification, and other federally-issued identification cards.  Generally, school-issued identifications are not acceptable for identification.

Generally, visitors to the jail are supposed to observe modest dress codes.  While modest dress is at the discretion of the supervising officer, the following items should always be avoided: revealing clothing; see-through material; clothing that shows undergarments; clothing that shows a lot of cleavage; short-shorts; short-skirts; tank tops; mesh clothing; or any gang-related clothing or clothing with violent images.

Inmate Phone Privileges

The Jim Wells County Jail does not allow inmates to receive incoming phone calls.  In fact, no jail facilities allow inmates to receive regular incoming phone calls, though some may permit them to receive messages.  All inmate phone calls are collect phone calls.

In addition, the Jim Wells County Jail will not accept messages for inmates.  However, if there is an emergency scenario, the jail may decide to relay a message to an inmate.  This will only be applicable in genuine emergencies, and you may need to verify the emergency to get the jail to relay a message to an inmate.  For questions about this, contact the jail directly at 361-668-0341.

Inmate Trust Accounts / Commissary

The Jim Wells County Jail provides canteen services, also known as commissary services, as a way for inmates to buy items that are not supplied by the jail.  Items sold in the commissary or through canteen include: snack items; writing supplies; recreational items; clothing items that are not supplied by the jail; and personal hygiene products.

To put money on an inmate’s trust account, contact the Jim Wells County Jail at 361-668-0341.  The jail can give you information about making deposits in person, by mail, or by phone.  Do not send money directly to the inmates; cash is considered contraband in the jail facility.

Bail Information

In Jim Wells County, the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Department is responsible for accepting bail for inmates in Jim Wells County.

To find out bond information for an inmate, you can find the inmate on the inmate locator list.  It will have information for each of an inmate’s charges, if bond is available for that inmate for that charge.  Not all inmates will be eligible for bond.  To be released, an inmate has to be bond eligible for all charges and the bond must be paid for every charge.  An inmate will not be released unless all bonds have been paid.

Jim Wells County accepts both cash bond and bail bond.  Cash bond refers to an individual paying the full amount of an inmate’s bond amount.  If you pay cash bond to the sheriff’s office, the full amount of the bond is refundable as long as the inmate appears at all scheduled court appearances and complies with any conditions on the bail.  If you are unable to pay the full amount of cash bail, you can secure the services of a bail bondsman.  The bondsman does not require you to pay the full amount of the bail, but generally charges a percentage of the bail, usually ten percent.  This is non-refundable and is the fee that the bail bondsman charges in order to guarantee that the inmate will appear in court.  If the inmate fails to appear at a scheduled court date, then the bail bondsman is responsible for the full amount of the inmate’s bail.    The Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office will not recommend a bail bondsman.  To locate a bail bondsman, you can find them in the Yellow Pages, online, or through criminal defense attorneys.

Conclusion

The Jim Wells County Jail in Alice, Texas, is the local jail facility for Jim Wells County, Texas.  It is run by the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office.  The Jim Wells County Jail is Danny Bueno.  The Jim Wells County Jail is primarily a temporary detention facility for the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office and other local law enforcement agencies in Jim Wells County.  It holds inmates who are being held prior to posting bail, inmates who have denied bail, inmates who are awaiting trial, post-trial inmates who are awaiting sentencing, and inmates who have been sentenced to serve their sentences at the Jim Wells County Jail facility.  Inmates sentenced to a local jail facility will be sentenced to serve less than a year in jail, and will generally be misdemeanor offenders, although they may also have state jail felonies or other felony convictions with a sentence of less than a year.

The Jim Wells County Jail is located at 300 N Cameron Street, Alice, Texas.  Its phone number is 361-668-0341.  The normal office hours for the jail are the same as the hours for the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office, Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm with a one-hour break for lunch from 12:00pm to 1:00pm.