1. The jail roster sits under the Sheriff's menu on the county website, so open it there.
2. Type the last name. No hit? Swap in a different spelling, a maiden name or the name friends use.
3. Write down what the listing shows for the person. Jail staff on the phone will find the file quicker if you read it back word for word.
4. Call the jail at 325-597-0639 to confirm. The roster is a starting point, and staff on the phone have the latest word.

The jail is staffed around the clock, so call any time. Be calm and brief, since the same line handles many callers.

An empty search on Main Street can have several causes besides a release:

• Booking takes time. Jailers take prints and a picture and fill in forms, and only then does a new name land on the list.
• They already left. Posting bail, signing a personal bond or having a charge dropped can get someone out the same day.
• A spelling mix-up. Names get typed wrong, so try a few versions.
• Another county has them. An arrest outside the county lands in that county's own jail.
• They are under 17. Youths do not go on the adult roster.

To check jails across the state at once, search Texas IVSS-Counties. Or dial 325-597-0639, and jail staff can say if a booking or a release took place.

Inside the county, there's one place. The McCulloch County Jail at 900 East Main Street, Brady, TX 76825, 325-597-0639, is the adult jail the Sheriff's Office runs. A Texas Commission on Jail Standards report from June 2022 put its capacity at 66 beds.

Still, a few people end up elsewhere:

• An arrest in a nearby county means that county's jail. Ask the Sheriff's Office where a neighbor's warrant would send a person.
• A child goes into juvenile detention, never the adult jail. The 452nd District Juvenile Probation Department, 325-792-4163, can tell you which center.
• Federal and ICE prisoners go wherever those agencies place them. See the federal and ICE answers below.

Call the jail to ask whether the roster shows photos. A sure way to get a booking photo is a written Public Information Act request mailed to the Sheriff's Office at 900 East Main Street, Brady, TX 76825. Phone 325-597-0639 to learn where to send it. Texas law lets the office release mugshots in many cases (GC 552.108(c)), and reporters ask the same way.

Other kinds of photos:

• If you want a photo ICE took, send a FOIA records request to the agency.
• Booking photos from federal agencies are seldom released. A Marshals Service photo might come out while deputies search for someone on the run.

Commercial mugshot websites in Texas must follow chapter 109, a part of the Business and Commerce Code. When a site asks $150 or more to pull a photo, it must fix or erase, at no cost, any entry that's false or leaves out facts. Records that a court expunged or ordered kept private under nondisclosure are off-limits to those sites. Some removal fees are still legal.

Yes. Texas IVSS-Counties sends free notices about people in county jails. This system replaced VINE in Texas, so skip any old VINE link on a county page and sign up here instead. Register on the website or through 866-268-8959.

• It tells you whether a person is in custody and which county jail holds them.
• Once you register, news of a release or a transfer reaches you without any need to keep checking.
• Callers reach the line day and night, in Spanish or English, and nobody else learns that you registered.

A magistrate must see your person within two days of the arrest, go over their rights and pick a bail. Bail takes three forms here: the full amount in cash, a bond from a licensed bondsman who charges a fee, or a personal bond resting on the person's written word. Certain violent charges make a personal bond impossible.

For each charge's bail and any hold, phone the jail at 325-597-0639. The full walk-through sits on our bail page, and the Texas bail laws page covers statewide rules.

Jail staff at 325-597-0639 can name the booking charges. After the prosecutor files, a clerk keeps the papers:

• The District Clerk, 199 Courthouse Square, Room 103, Brady, TX 76825, 325-597-0733, keeps felony files.
• The County Clerk, 101 N. High, Brady, TX 76825, 325-597-2400, keeps Class A and B misdemeanor files.

Both clerks share an Online Records Search. A free account on re:SearchTX, run by Texas courts, also opens filed charges and judgments.

Your person is asked at the first hearing whether they want a lawyer the county will pay. A yes, plus a sworn form about income and bills, gets the request moving. Five counties in the 452nd District share an appointed counsel plan.

• The County Judge names lawyers on misdemeanors, and the District Judge names them on felonies.
• Texas law sets a limit of three working days to appoint one once a request reaches the court (CCP art. 1.051).
• Forms are also available from the clerks or the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, 209 West 14th Street, Room 202, Austin, TX 78701, 512-936-6994.

Hiring a private defense attorney is always an option for the family too.

Before driving to Main Street, call 325-597-0639. Find out which days are open for visits, how to get on the list and which ID the desk accepts. Some jails run video visits from a lobby screen or a home computer, so ask about those too. Our visitation page has more tips.

State jail rules set a floor. Under GC 511.009 and state jail standards, a jail must allow at least two visits weekly through glass or video. Visits last 20 minutes or longer, and the jail has to schedule one of the two on a weekend or an evening. A parent or guardian should come along with any child who visits.

With money in a jail account, your person can buy soap, snacks and phone minutes. Ask the jail at 325-597-0639 how deposits are made, whether a lobby kiosk or an online service is used, and what fees apply. Deposits are covered on our money page. The commissary page explains the jail store.

People in jail can make outgoing calls, often collect or through a prepaid account. They can't answer incoming calls. Ask the jail at 325-597-0639 which phone company handles calls and whether tablets allow messages or email.

Setup for calls is on our phone page, and messages are on the email page. Except for lawyer calls, staff may record what is said, so your person should keep case details off the phone.

Before you mail anything, call 325-597-0639 and confirm the address and the ID number to write on the envelope. Ask if the jail takes only postcards or limits photos, and use the street address the jail gives you, such as 900 East Main Street, Brady, TX 76825, only after staff confirm it.

• Texas standards let your person receive as many letters as people send.
• When a lawyer writes, the envelope gets opened only in front of your person.
• Ask before sending anything beyond a plain letter, such as photos, cards or books.

See our mail page for more about letters, books and photos.

During booking, the jail makes a list of the person's things and locks them away. Most items go home with the person when they're released. To collect an item sooner, phone 325-597-0639. Ask whether your person must sign a form letting you have it, which ID the desk will want and when pickup is allowed.

Anything seized as evidence belongs to the case for now. Getting it back is a question for a lawyer to raise with the court.

Call the jail right away at 325-597-0639. Tell staff about each medicine, any allergy and any health problem, then ask the right way to drop off a prescription or a note from a doctor. Jails in Texas must give needed health care.

If the jail sees signs that someone may be mentally ill or have an intellectual disability, the Sheriff must tell a magistrate within 12 hours. An evaluation can then be ordered by the magistrate (CCP art. 16.22).

If the jail does not fix a problem, the state's jail standards commission handles complaints. Use its complaint page or call 512-463-5505.

Deputies working out of 900 East Main Street, Brady, TX 76825, serve county warrants. Phone 325-597-0639 to ask about one. City police, 325-597-2121, handle cases in town, and the municipal court page has a subpoenas and warrants link. DPS posts its list of the state's most wanted on the Texas 10 Most Wanted site. A defense lawyer should come first. After that, your person can go to the court named on the warrant to turn themselves in, or call it and ask for a hearing. Felony warrants go through the District Clerk, 199 Courthouse Square, Room 103, Brady, TX 76825, 325-597-0733.

Court dates come from the clerk with the file. The District Clerk, 325-597-0733, handles felonies, and the County Clerk, 325-597-2400, handles Class A and B misdemeanors. Have the full name or cause number ready.

The county also posts a District Criminal Docket and a County Court Docket. For tickets that carry only a fine, the date comes from the Justice of the Peace, 325-597-8000, or from the municipal court, 325-597-2156. Our court page covers each courtroom.

A federal arrest from around here leads to the Austin courthouse of the Western District of Texas. Clerk staff answer at 512-916-5896, and the office sits at 501 West Fifth Street, Suite 1100, Austin, TX 78701.

• A federal judge holds a detention hearing, usually at the first appearance, to decide release (18 U.S.C. 3142).
• The U.S. Marshals Service decides where a federal defendant waits for trial. Their Austin office is at 501 West 5th Street, Suite 3300, Austin, TX 78701, 512-916-5393.
• The Federal Public Defender, 504 Lavaca Street, Suite 960, Austin, TX 78701, 512-916-5025, represents those who can't pay.
• After sentencing, use the BOP inmate locator.

1. ICE starts by delivering a detainer, Form I-247A, to the Main Street jail.
2. The person may then be held up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released, so ICE can come (8 CFR 287.7(d)).
3. Texas law (CCP art. 2A.060) makes a jail honor the detainer. Showing proof of lawful status is the exception. GC 752.053 also stops any local policy from limiting immigration enforcement.
4. A 2025 statute expects each sheriff in Texas who runs a lockup to have applied to ICE for 287(g) by December 1, 2026. Phone the Sheriff's Office to ask whether the county has applied.
5. ICE officers then take custody and drive or fly the person to an immigration detention center.
6. Use the ICE Online Detainee Locator with a name or an A-number, plus country of birth. You can also call the ICE San Antonio Field Office, 3523 Crosspoint Drive, San Antonio, TX 78217, 210-564-3300, or the Dallas office, 8101 N. Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, TX 75247, 972-367-2200.

Once a judge hands down a prison or state jail term, TDCJ collects the person from Main Street. An intake center tests and sorts each new arrival first. TDCJ then chooses a unit based on the person's needs and risk.

• Type a name or a TDCJ number into the TDCJ inmate search to find the person.
• Read our Texas state prisons page for visits, mail and money in state prison.

Texas treats offenses at ages 10 to 16 as juvenile cases, and anyone 17 or older counts as an adult (FC 51.02). A youth waits in a juvenile detention center rather than on Main Street, and officers have to call a parent without delay.

Call the 452nd District Juvenile Probation Department, 1000 South Wall Street, Brady, TX 76825, 325-792-4163. Ask what center the child is in and the day set for the detention hearing. A lawyer is named first, and the hearing follows within two working days (FC 54.01).

• McCulloch County Sheriff's Office: 900 East Main Street, Brady, TX 76825, 325-597-0639. Deputies patrol the whole county, including Melvin and the countryside.
• Brady Police Department: Public Service Building, 209 S Elm Street, Brady, TX 76825, 325-597-2121. The station is open 24 hours a day.
• City of Melvin: P.O. Box 177, Melvin, TX 76858, 855-481-0144. With no police chief listed for the town, the Sheriff's Office takes its calls.
• State troopers: Texas DPS patrols the highways. For the trooper office serving this area, check with the Sheriff's Office.

The arrest report usually names the agency. If you can't tell, the jail can check who brought the person in.