The Lafayette County Inmate Population
Lafayette County is one of Florida's smallest counties, and its jail count reflects that. The Lafayette County Sheriff's Office runs the county jail in Mayo, where recent arrests, pretrial detainees, county prisoners, and people serving short local sentences are held. The sheriff does not publish a daily population dashboard, so the most reliable recent counts come from the Florida Department of Corrections county detention facility reports. Those reports listed a Lafayette County Jail average daily population of 3 in February 2025 and 2 in March 2025. Older numbers run higher. The Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research recorded a June 2020 average daily population of 38.
Two forces move the count. Arrests and no-bond holds add people. Releases, posted bonds, dropped charges, and transfers to state prison take people back out. Because the county is small, a few bookings can swing the figure sharply from one month to the next. Sentenced felons do not stay in the county jail. Once a Lafayette case ends in a Florida prison sentence, that person leaves the local count and is tracked by the Florida Department of Corrections. A separate state prison, Mayo Correctional Institution Annex, also sits inside the county, but it holds state inmates, not the county jail population.
Lafayette County Inmate Population Statistics
No single source gives a live headcount for the Lafayette County inmate population, so the honest picture comes from a few dated official reports read together. The figures below should be read as snapshots from monthly reports and study datasets, not as the number of people in a cell today. For a current count, the jail phone line is the only direct route. Reported figures also vary by source and reporting period, since each agency measures the population a little differently.
| Measure | Figure | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| Jail average daily population | 3 | FDC County Detention Facilities Report, Feb 2025 |
| Jail average daily population | 2 | FDC County Detention Facilities Report, Mar 2025 |
| Jail average daily population | 38 | Florida EDR criminal-justice profile, June 2020 |
| Jail rated capacity | NA | Florida EDR criminal-justice profile, June 2020 |
| Mayo CI Annex capacity (state prison) | 1,345 | FDC facility page |
| County population estimate | 8,640 | U.S. Census QuickFacts, 2024 |
Lafayette County Inmate Population Trends
Over the past several years the Lafayette jail count has trended down, though the swings look large because the base number is tiny. The Vera Institute county dataset shows a jail population near 38 in 2020 and 2021, falling to 26 in 2022, about 21 in 2023, and 11 in 2024. The 2025 FDC monthly reports show an average daily population of just 2 to 3. No official source explains the drop, so it is best read as the normal volatility of a very small county rather than a single policy change.
| Year | Jail Population / ADP | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 38 | Vera dataset and EDR June 2020 ADP. |
| 2021 | 38 | Vera county dataset. |
| 2022 | 26 | Vera county dataset. |
| 2023 | 21.25 | Vera county dataset. |
| 2024 | 11 | Vera county dataset. |
| 2025 (Feb) | 3 | FDC county detention report. |
| 2025 (Mar) | 2 | FDC county detention report. |
Sources: Vera Institute Incarceration Trends and the Florida Department of Corrections county detention facility reports.
Who Makes Up the Lafayette County Inmate Population
A current breakdown of the Lafayette jail population by sex, race, or pretrial versus sentenced status was not published by the sheriff, and the recent Vera demographic cells for the county are largely blank. What can be said is general. The county jail holds pretrial detainees, county prisoners, and short local sentences, while the large state prison in the county holds adult men sentenced to Florida custody. Countywide census context helps frame the scale of the local justice system.
- Custody type - the jail population is mostly pretrial and short-sentence; sentenced felons move to state prison.
- State prison gender - Mayo Correctional Institution Annex is listed by the state as an adult male facility.
- County population - the U.S. Census estimated 8,640 residents in 2024, which is why even a dozen jail inmates registers as a visible rate.
- State holds and transfers - some people in the jail are held on warrants or for transfer rather than a local charge.
Lafayette County Jail Capacity and Overcrowding
The official jail capacity for Lafayette County is not published. The Florida EDR criminal-justice profile lists the June 2020 county jail capacity as NA, and the sheriff's pages do not state a bed count. With an average daily population of only two or three people in early 2025, overcrowding is not the local concern that it is in larger counties. No jail litigation, consent decree, or new-construction plan for the Lafayette County Jail was located in official or high-authority sources. Any capacity number from a commercial aggregator should be treated with caution because no official figure backs it up.
Laws Governing the Lafayette County Inmate Population
The reason jail and inmate information is reachable at all is Florida's broad public-records law, and a small set of statutes shapes how the county jail is run and inspected. Florida Chapter 119 makes most agency records open unless an exemption applies, which is the authority behind every records request to the sheriff. A pair of detention-facility statutes set the standards and inspection framework that county jails follow, and a medical-examiner statute governs jurisdiction over deaths in custody. Each is summarized in plain terms below.
Key Statutes:
Florida Statutes Chapter 119 - makes jail booking records, custody status, and most sheriff records public unless a specific exemption applies.
Florida Statutes § 951.23 - sets the Florida Model Jail Standards framework that county and municipal detention facilities operate under.
Florida Statutes § 951.2302 - covers inspection of county detention facilities and the penalties for failing to meet jail standards.
Florida Statutes § 406.11 - gives the medical examiner jurisdiction over deaths that happen in a prison or penal institution.
The Florida Sheriffs Association publishes the Model Jail Standards that these statutes reference. Florida does not have a separate state law that forces every agency to report death-in-custody data to the state, so that area runs on the medical-examiner framework rather than a single jail-population reporting law.
Lafayette County and the State Prison Population
Sentenced felons from a Lafayette County case do not stay in the county system. The Florida Department of Corrections runs the statewide prison population, and a Lafayette defendant sentenced to more than a year is transported from the county jail into a state reception center for processing, health screening, and custody classification before transfer to a permanent facility. After that point the person is searchable in the state offender database, not the county jail records. The state notes that its database covers felons sentenced to prison or state supervision and does not include people sentenced to county jail or county probation.
Lafayette County is unusual because a large state prison sits inside it. Mayo Correctional Institution Annex has a rated capacity of 1,345, many times the county jail's monthly population and a sizable correctional footprint for a county of roughly 8,600 residents. Those are state prisoners under Florida Department of Corrections authority, counted separately from the county jail. The home page treats both as people held in facilities within Lafayette County, but the local jail count and the state prison capacity are different measures that should never be added together.
How to Search the Lafayette County Inmate Population
During research, no official Lafayette County Sheriff online jail roster, recent-bookings feed, or mugshot gallery was located on the sheriff website or in the Florida Department of State county-jail directory. That makes Lafayette a call-the-jail county rather than a click-a-roster county. The official route for current custody is the jail phone line, with the sheriff's records office and a public-records request as the backups.
The Lafayette County Sheriff's Office jail information page is the official source for the jail address, the jail phone line, and how to add money to a commissary account.
Because that page lists a phone number instead of a search box, confirming whether a specific person is in the Lafayette County inmate population means calling the jail rather than loading a website. The steps below walk through the fastest official path.
- Call the Lafayette County Jail at 386-294-4381 and ask whether the person is in custody.
- Ask for the booking date, the charges, and whether bond is set or a hold blocks release.
- For copies of a booking record, contact the sheriff's administrative and records office at 386-294-1222.
- If the person was sentenced to state prison, search the Florida Department of Corrections offender database instead.
- For release and custody notifications, register the name with VINELink.
Current Inmate Lookup in Lafayette County
For someone booked into the county jail today, the live answer comes from the jail, not a portal. The sheriff FAQ is explicit that anyone wanting to know if a person is in jail, when they can be visited, or other information about persons in jail should call the jail directly. A public-records request will eventually produce copies, but it is slower than a phone call and is better suited to older records or paperwork you need in writing.
The only public name-search form available for a Florida custody question is the state prison database, and it applies only after sentencing. Its search fields are shown below so the difference between the county jail and the state system is clear.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last Name | Text | No, but one or more fields requested | Max 30 characters; returns names that begin with the letters typed. |
| First Name | Text | No | Max 15 characters; begins-with matching. |
| DC Number | Text | No | Six characters; the primary state corrections identifier. |
| Search aliases? | Checkbox | No | Checked by default; also searches known aliases. |
| Photo filters | Checkbox | No | Hide list photos or show only records that have a photo. |
Source: Florida DOC Inmate Population Search.
Past and Released Inmate Records
Finding someone who is no longer in the Lafayette County Jail takes a different path than a current lookup. Because there is no public roster, there is no released-inmate tab to browse and no archived booking gallery online. For a past booking, a Chapter 119 public-records request to the sheriff is the route. A specific request works better than a broad one, so ask for the booking sheet, the arrest report, the release or transfer record, and the booking photo if it is releasable. Keep in mind that a records request is the backup for copies and history, not the fastest way to confirm whether someone is physically in jail right now.
If the person was sentenced to state prison after a Lafayette case, the past-and-present record lives in the state offender database rather than the county. A released or formerly sentenced state inmate can also appear in the state release-information search. The county roster never held that record in the first place, so a state search is the correct tool once a sentence to Florida custody is involved.
What a Lafayette County Inmate Record Shows
Because no public Lafayette jail profile could be inspected, the table below lists the fields a county booking record is expected to contain and that you can request, rather than fields visible on a website. A booking charge is not the same as the charge a prosecutor later files, so the bond and charge details should always be confirmed against the court case as well as the jail.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Name | The person booked or held; confirm spelling with the jail or records. |
| Booking Date | When the person entered the Lafayette County Jail. |
| Arresting Agency | The sheriff's office or another agency that made the arrest. |
| Charges | Arrest and booking charges, which can differ from the filed court charges. |
| Bond / Hold | Bond amount and type, or a no-bond or hold status. |
| Release / Transfer | Whether the person was released, bonded out, or moved to state custody. |
Note: A booking record may include a mugshot, but no public Lafayette mugshot gallery exists, so a booking photo must be requested from the sheriff as a public record.
County Jail vs. State Prison: Where to Look
The most common search mistake is using the wrong system. Pretrial detainees and people serving short local sentences sit in the county jail, which has no online roster, so a phone call is the answer. Sentenced felons move to a state prison and are tracked by the Florida Department of Corrections through a public locator. The table makes the split clear so a search starts in the right place. A person held on a federal or immigration matter falls outside both of these and uses a federal locator instead.
| County Jail | State Prison (DOC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who Is Held | Pretrial and short sentences | Sentenced felons |
| Run By | Lafayette County Sheriff | Florida Department of Corrections |
| Where to Look | Call the jail (no online roster) | State inmate locator |
| Photo Online | No public mugshot page | Photo on the offender detail page |
State and Federal Inmate Search
Beyond the county jail, three locators cover the rest of the custody map. The state database covers people sentenced to Florida prison or supervision. The federal Bureau of Prisons locator covers federal sentenced inmates from 1982 to the present. The ICE detainee locator covers people in immigration custody. No federal Bureau of Prisons facility and no ICE detention facility was located in Lafayette County, so those searches apply to people held elsewhere who have a Lafayette connection.
The Florida Department of Corrections inmate population search lets you look up a sentenced state prisoner by name or by DC number and shows a photo on the detail page.
That state form is the right tool once a Lafayette case ends in a prison sentence, while the federal BOP locator and the ICE detainee locator cover federal and immigration custody. For release alerts on any Florida custody, VINELink provides notification.
Lafayette County Detention Facilities
Two facilities in Lafayette County hold part of the inmate population, and they are very different. One is the local county jail run by the sheriff, and the other is a state prison run by Florida corrections. Each has its own lookup path, which is why they get separate pages.
- Lafayette County Jail - the local sheriff-run jail in Mayo holding recent arrests, pretrial detainees, and short local sentences.
- Mayo Correctional Institution Annex - a Florida Department of Corrections state prison for adult men sentenced to state custody.
Lafayette County Inmate Population FAQ
How big is the Lafayette County inmate population?
The Lafayette County Jail average daily population was reported as 3 in February 2025 and 2 in March 2025 by the Florida Department of Corrections county detention reports. Older figures were higher, near 38 in 2020. The numbers come from monthly reports and study datasets, not a live daily count, so the only way to know how many people are in the jail today is to call the jail.
How do I search the Lafayette County inmate population?
There is no public online jail roster for Lafayette County. To check current custody, call the Lafayette County Jail at 386-294-4381. For copies of booking records, contact the sheriff's records office at 386-294-1222 or file a public-records request. For a sentenced state prisoner, search the Florida Department of Corrections offender database instead.
Can I look up a released or past inmate?
For a past county booking, submit a public-records request to the sheriff for the specific record you need, since no online archive exists. If the person was sentenced to a Florida prison, the state offender database and its release search cover both current and former state inmates. The county jail records never held a sentenced state inmate in the first place.
Is the state prison in Mayo the same as the county jail?
No. Mayo Correctional Institution Annex is a Florida Department of Corrections state prison for sentenced adult men, with a capacity of 1,345. The Lafayette County Jail is the small local jail run by the sheriff. They have separate populations and separate lookup systems and should not be combined into one number.