Suwannee County Jail Overview
The Suwannee County Sheriff's Office operates the Suwannee County Jail at 305 Pine Avenue in Live Oak. Sheriff Sam St. John leads the office. The sheriff describes the jail as the booking and intake location for every law enforcement agency working in the county, which means sheriff arrests, Live Oak Police arrests, and arrests by state agencies all come through here. Jail staff handle the care, custody, and control of the people held.
The jail holds people arrested and held without bond, people who cannot post the bail a court set, people transferred from other places while awaiting trial in Suwannee County, and people sentenced to less than one year in county jail. It houses males, females, and juveniles charged or sentenced as adults on misdemeanor and felony crimes. The authorized capacity is 235 inmates, and the facility has been accredited by the Florida Corrections Accreditation Commission since 2004.
The jail's role as the single intake point matters for anyone trying to find someone. Because every local agency books here, a person arrested anywhere in the county should appear on this one roster rather than a separate city lockup. There is no separate municipal jail page for Live Oak or Branford, since arrestees route to the Suwannee County Jail. That keeps the lookup simple: one county roster for a county arrest, with the state and federal systems reserved for sentenced or federal custody.
The sheriff jail page lays out the facility's services, address, and rules in one place.
The official sheriff jail page is the source for the facility's capacity, visitation, mail, and commissary rules. One local detail stands out: the jail runs an inmate work crew that provides landscaping for more than thirty county buildings.
Suwannee County Jail Capacity and Population
The jail is authorized for 235 beds. Florida's monthly county detention report listed an average daily population of 146 in October 2025, well under that capacity, with months in 2025 ranging from 139 to 156. The same October report showed a pretrial share of 60.3 percent, so most people in the jail were still awaiting trial.
How to Look Up an Inmate at Suwannee County Jail
Use the sheriff's SMARTCOP JAIL View roster, the official county tool. It is free, needs no login, and opens on a recent-bookings view labeled BOOKED Last 24 Hours. A name is enough to start a search, and the record returns charges, bond, holds, and a booking photo.
- Open the SMARTCOP JAIL View roster for Suwannee County.
- Enter the last name, adding a first name to narrow common matches.
- Confirm the booking date and status to be sure it is the right person.
- Open the record for charges, bond, holds, and the booking photo.
Deeper roster help, including the full field list and the released-inmate search, is on the jail inmate records page.
Suwannee County Jail Address and Contact
The jail and the sheriff's main office sit at different addresses, so confirm which one you need. The jail is on Pine Avenue, while the sheriff's main office is on Ohio Avenue South. The directory lists separate lines for booking, transportation, visitation, the nurse station, and records.
Suwannee County Jail
305 Pine Avenue
Live Oak, FL 32064
(386) 364-3595
Booking Desk (386) 364-3778
Visiting Someone at Suwannee County Jail
The jail does not allow contact visits. Visitation runs through HomeWAV, which you set up by creating an account online or downloading the free app on a phone or home computer. The sheriff's captured pages did not publish exact visit days, times, ID rules, or a dress code, so the schedule below reflects what is documented rather than a fixed timetable. Confirm the current rules through the visitation coordinator at (386) 364-3418 before planning a visit.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Visit Type | No contact visits; HomeWAV video visitation. |
| Setup | Create a HomeWAV account online or use the free app. |
| Schedule | Exact days and times not published; confirm with the coordinator. |
| Coordinator | (386) 364-3418 |
Mail, Phone, and Money at Suwannee County Jail
Mail goes to the jail with the inmate's name in the attention line, and all mail is screened before delivery. Phone calls are collect only, and phone cards are not accepted. If a phone provider does not accept collect calls, the sheriff page directs callers to Invision Telecom at 800-844-6591, and all calls are recorded and screened. Money for commissary is handled at the lobby kiosk or online, and the sheriff says money orders are no longer accepted. To make a deposit, you need the state, the facility, and the inmate's name or ID.
| Service | Provider / Detail |
|---|---|
| Mail Address | Suwannee County Jail, Attention: Inmate's Name, 305 Pine Avenue SW, Live Oak, FL 32064 |
| Phone | Collect calls only; phone cards not accepted; Invision Telecom 800-844-6591 for collect support; calls recorded. |
| Money Deposit | Lobby kiosk (cash, credit, debit) or commissarydeposit.com (credit, debit); no money orders. |
Booking and Intake at Suwannee County Jail
Booking happens here for arrests across the county. Intake creates the record fields the roster later shows: a booking number, an MNI number, the booking date and time, age at booking, the address given, a custody status, a bond amount, a photo, any holds, and the charges. A person who cannot bond out within 24 hours appears before a county judge for first appearance, where bond and Public Defender qualification are addressed. The sheriff directory lists a nurse station at (386) 364-3781, though no public medical-screening procedure was published.
A hold can change the picture at intake. The captured Suwannee roster showed a separate holds section, including an ICE hold in one sample, which can keep a person in custody even when a bond is set. That is why the booking desk is the right line to confirm whether release is actually possible, rather than reading a bond figure on the roster alone.
Public Records From the Sheriff
Records that are not on the roster come from the sheriff's records unit. The public-records custodian for the office is Traci McCormick, reachable at (386) 364-3417, the same line the directory lists for records and warrants. Use it for older booking records, an arrest report held by the sheriff, or a booking photo not shown online. Florida treats email addresses as public records, so a sensitive requester may prefer to phone or mail a request to the sheriff's office at 200 Ohio Avenue South rather than email.
The clerk of court is not the channel for these. Suwannee's clerk routes arrest, jail, inmate, mugshot, and warrant questions to the sheriff, and keeps only the court case files. For the charges a prosecutor files after an arrest, the court records after a jail arrest page covers the clerk and court path.
Felon Registration at the Jail
The jail also handles a registration duty that is not an inmate search. The sheriff page cites Florida law requiring convicted felons to register in person with the Sheriff's Office within 48 hours of entering Suwannee County, unless an exemption applies. Registrations are completed Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., excluding holidays, at the jail on Pine Avenue. The process takes about 30 minutes, involves fingerprinting and a photograph, and requires photo identification. The registration line is (386) 364-3778.
About Suwannee County Jail
The jail carries a few details worth noting. It has been accredited by the Florida Corrections Accreditation Commission since 2004. Its inmate work crew provides landscaping services to more than thirty county buildings, a specific and official local detail rather than generic boilerplate. The county also funded new interior and exterior security screens on dozens of cell windows in 2022. The jail page cites a felon-registration duty as well, requiring convicted felons to register in person with the sheriff within 48 hours of entering the county unless an exemption applies.
Note: Confirm custody status, bond, and visitation directly with the jail before you travel, post bond, or send money, because details can change quickly.