Leon County Jail Roster Overview
The Leon County Sheriff's Office runs the county jail and its online inmate search. The roster covers current custody at the Leon County Detention Facility, and the results page states plainly that it displays inmates currently in custody. The sheriff is clear about the limits too. The search is informational, it is not a background check, and it shows booking information rather than a final court outcome. No official refresh interval was published, so a very recent booking may take some time to appear.
The roster does not cover everyone. It will not show a person sentenced to state prison, a federal inmate, or someone held only on an immigration matter. Those people move into other systems, and the search shifts to the Florida Department of Corrections, the federal Bureau of Prisons, or the ICE locator. The home page covers the wider Leon County inmate population and its trends in more depth.
How to Use the Leon County Inmate Roster
The search is free and needs no login. Leon's form is stricter than most, since it treats first name, last name, ethnicity, and gender all as required. That means a correct name alone may not be enough. Have the person's likely ethnicity and gender in mind before you start.
- Open the official LCSO inmate search page.
- Read the disclaimer so you know the result is booking data, not a court record.
- Enter the first and last name in the required fields.
- Pick an ethnicity from the dropdown and choose a gender.
- Click Search Roster and review the matching rows.
- Use the name, age, arrest date, charges, and arresting agency to tell similar names apart, and open View Detail when it is offered.
For release or bond questions, call the detention center at 850-606-3500 or the releasing office at 850-606-3526 rather than reading a date on the row literally.
Leon County Roster Search Fields
The form is short, but every field counts. The table below lists what the official search asks for and how each field behaves. The required ethnicity and gender fields are the part most people miss.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Name | Text | Yes | Free-text first name field. |
| Last Name | Text | Yes | Free-text last name field. |
| Ethnicity | Dropdown | Yes | White, Black, Oriental/Asian, American Indian/Alaskan Native. |
| Gender | Radio | Yes | Male, Female, or Other. |
Note: because ethnicity and gender are required, an unknown or mismatched choice can hide a person who is in fact in custody.
What a Leon County Inmate Record Shows
The key visible record is the result row, not a long profile page. It is compact and built around current custody. The official results page lists the columns, and they appear in the screenshot below. The results interface and its disclaimer are shown on the sheriff's own search results page.
As the results view shows, the row carries a photo, name and age, arrest date, an in-jail flag, the charges, and the arresting agency, but no confirmed bond or housing detail.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Photo | A booking photo column for a matching current inmate. |
| Full Name and Age | Last-name-first format with the age and a View Detail link. |
| Last Arrest Date | Date of the most recent arrest in month/day/year form. |
| Last Release Date | A date field that may show a placeholder when no release has occurred. |
| In Jail? | A yes or no flag for current custody. |
| Charges | A text list that can include holds, violations, and multiple counts. |
| Arresting Agency | The agency that booked the person. |
Booking number, bond, housing unit, and court date are not confirmed on the public row. The sheriff's disclaimer points statewide criminal history to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the FAQ says to call the clerk for a court date.
Finding County, State, and Federal Inmates
The county roster is only one of four lookups. Where a person sits in the process decides which one you need. A pre-trial detainee or a short county sentence shows on the sheriff's roster. A sentenced felon moves to the Florida Department of Corrections offender search. A federal inmate appears in the Bureau of Prisons locator, and an immigration detainee shows in the ICE system. Florida VINELink can layer custody-status notifications on top where the data is available.
You can set up custody notifications through Florida VINELink, which is a separate service from the sheriff's roster.
VINELink and the county roster do not share the same data, so a result in one does not replace a check in the other.
| Custody | Where to Look |
|---|---|
| Pre-trial or short county sentence | LCSO inmate search |
| Sentenced state felon | Florida DOC offender search |
| Federal inmate | Federal BOP locator |
| Immigration hold | ICE detainee locator |
Records Requests and Statewide Criminal History
When the live roster does not have what you need, the next step is a public records request to the sheriff. The Leon County Sheriff's Office handles requests through its GovQA public records center, and its Records Management Bureau answers questions that go beyond the current-in-custody roster. Use that route for an older booking record, a local arrest record, or a booking photo that is no longer online.
Know the difference between a local check and a statewide one. The sheriff's local background check costs $5 per person plus a $2 transaction fee, and it only covers Leon County arrests. A full statewide criminal history comes from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement instead, for a $24 search fee plus a $1 card-processing charge. The roster disclaimer itself points statewide history questions to that agency.
- Current custody: the LCSO inmate search.
- Older or removed records: the sheriff's GovQA records center or Records Management Bureau.
- Local arrests only: the $5 local background check.
- Statewide history: the Florida Department of Law Enforcement search.
Leon County Jail Facilities
The county has one adult jail and no satellite detention sites, a point the sheriff's 2022 health services solicitation makes directly. A federal prison also sits in the county, but it holds federal inmates and uses the Bureau of Prisons locator. Both facilities have their own pages on this site.
Leon County Detention Facility
535 Appleyard Dr.
Tallahassee, FL 32304
850-606-3500
Maximum capacity listed at 1,250 in the 2022 RFP
FCI Tallahassee
501 Capital Circle NE
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Use the BOP facility page
Federal custody, searched through the BOP locator
Booking Process in Leon County
The local path begins with an arrest by the sheriff, the Tallahassee Police Department, a campus police agency, the Florida Highway Patrol, or another agency working in the county. The detention facility books and holds people for all of them. The state attorney's overview says a person taken to jail is fingerprinted and photographed, and the clerk's office receives the arrest paperwork and opens the official court file.
Within 24 hours of arrest, a defendant is brought before a judge for first appearance unless already released in a lawful way. Official sources differ on the exact weekday time, with the sheriff's FAQ listing 11:00 a.m. on weekdays and the state attorney's page listing 8:45 a.m. in Courtroom 2D, so confirm the current time with the court or jail. Intake also covers a property and money receipt, a phone PIN, and medical and mental-health screening, then classification and a housing assignment.
Classification decides custody level and housing based on risk and needs, and a fuller medical assessment follows within the first two weeks of incarceration. A new booking appears on the online roster as current in-custody information, though the sheriff publishes no official refresh interval, so a very recent arrest can take some time to show.
Visitation Hours and Rules
In-person visits restarted in February 2024. The sheriff's visitation page lists daytime and evening blocks and adds Securus video visitation as a supplement. Visitors must be 16 or older, show valid ID, clear a metal detector, and follow a dress code. Each visitor gets 30 minutes with one person per day, and that time cannot be split between inmates.
The visitation rules, schedule, and dress code appear on the sheriff's inmate visitation page.
As the page shows, video visits run on a wider schedule than in-person visits, and the cost text is rendered as a range per visit.
| Type | Hours | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| In-person visit | Starts 8:30 a.m.; last daytime visit by 4:30 p.m.; evening 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. | One 30-minute visit per day; ID required |
| Attorney visit | 60 minutes, with multiple blocks if needed | Not monitored or recorded |
| Video visitation | Per the handbook, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., then 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. | Scheduled through Securus; monitored and recorded |
| Family Time and Tales | By appointment, at least 24 hours ahead | Child-friendly video visits at the main library |
How to Contact a Leon County Inmate
Mail goes to two different addresses, and mixing them up causes problems. Personal mail goes to the Securus Digital Mail Center for Leon County in Tampa, where it is scanned to the inmate's tablet. Legal mail goes to the detention facility's own PO Box in Tallahassee and is opened and copied in the inmate's presence. Personal mail sent to the wrong address is returned.
Phones run on a Securus account, turn on at 6:00 a.m., turn off at 11:00 p.m., and limit calls to 30 minutes. Calls to the Public Defender at the listed number are free and are not recorded or monitored. The sheriff also offers a TTY and interpreter option through case management.
Commissary and Inmate Funds
Money for the inmate canteen goes through JPay online or by phone, and care packages come through iCareGifts. The lobby kiosk takes deposits too, though the sheriff's page is inconsistent about whether the kiosk accepts cash only or cash and card, so confirm before you go. The handbook lists weekly canteen limits of $40 for snacks and $35 for hygiene, for a $75 weekly total, plus a $2.70 daily food fee deducted from the account.
The deposit methods, kiosk note, and care-package vendor are shown on the sheriff's inmate deposits page.
The page confirms JPay for online and phone deposits, which is the safest channel when the kiosk payment type is unclear.
Note: Confirm current custody status with the jail before you send money or schedule a visit, since a recent release or transfer may not yet show on the roster.