Gulf County, Florida — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Gulf County Detention Facility (Jail)

Operated byNot stated — listed on the Gulf County government website as a county office with its own warden, not under the Sheriff; confirm
WardenMichael Hammond
AdministratorCaptain Bart Lowry
Phone(850) 227-1124
StatusPage says recent renovations are under way
Rated capacityNot found
Jail AdministratorMichael Hammond, Warden; Captain Bart Lowry, Administrator

Source: Gulf County, FL — Detention Facility · checked 2026-09-28

Transparency rating

Not scored. Gulf County's and its sheriff's own websites could not be reached or read in the session that produced this record, so their disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Mike Harrison

CurrentNamed in the FDLE Sheriff's Office Directory, 2 Sep 2025; not confirmed on a county page
Runs the jailNot stated on any page opened. The county website lists the Gulf County Detention Facility as its own county office, with its own warden, separate from the Sheriff's listing
How the office is filledElected, four-year term

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: FDLE Sheriff's Office Directory (2 Sep 2025) · checked 2026-09-28

The Judges

Florida's circuit and county judges are elected state judicial officers, not county officials. A judge sets the first conditions of release at first appearance, within 24 hours of arrest.

Who sets bail in Gulf County

Circuit Court: Florida's Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Bay, Calhoun, Holmes, Jackson and Washington (Fla. Stat. 26.021). Circuit judges are elected circuit-wide to six-year terms and hear felonies.
County Court: the Gulf County Court. County judges are elected countywide to six-year terms and hear misdemeanors.

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-28

The Board of County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. In most counties the sheriff runs it; in some, the county does.

What they controlThe sheriff's budget, including its separate line for corrections and detention: the sheriff submits it by June 1 and the board may amend, increase or reduce it (Fla. Stat. 30.49). The board also owns the jail building, and it decides by ordinance whether the sheriff or a county corrections department runs the jail (Fla. Stat. 951.061).
What they don'tDay-to-day operations where the sheriff runs the jail. The sheriff is separately elected, and can appeal the board's budget cuts to the Governor and Cabinet sitting as the Administration Commission. No state agency inspects the jail; peer inspectors from other sheriffs' offices do.
NoteFive commissioners; meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at 9:00 AM Eastern. The minutes page loads its documents by script and showed no files to our reader.
The boardGulf County Board of County Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

The county's own site (gulfcounty-fl.gov, confirmed Gulf County, Florida) names the Gulf County Detention Facility (Jail), with Warden Michael Hammond and Administrator Captain Bart Lowry. It lists the facility among county offices, separate from the Sheriff; no opened page says in words who operates it.
The sheriff's site gulfsheriff.com (including its arrest log) and the county's sheriff page were refused by robots.txt, so no own page confirmed the sheriff's name; Mike Harrison is the FDLE fallback.
Budget: the county has a Budgets page (https://www.gulfcounty-fl.gov/meeting/budgets) and an OMB page, but the budgets page loads its documents by script and our reader saw no files. Budget is recorded 'no' only because nothing could be seen — this check was not truly judged and should be re-checked in a browser.
Detention Facility page gives no capacity, visitation, commissary, fees, bond, PREA, deaths, inspection or contract information.
County seat Port St. Joe: the Board of County Commissioners page gives the board's address as 1000 Cecil G. Costin Sr. Blvd., Port St. Joe.
What was tried: https://www.gulfsheriff.com/ and https://www.gulfsheriff.com/arrest-log.cfm (ROBOTS_DISALLOWED); https://www.gulfcounty-fl.gov/our_government/gulf_county_sheriff (ROBOTS_DISALLOWED). 1 WebSearch used.
Not scored: The whole sheriff site and arrest log were blocked by robots and the budget documents were script-hidden, so only a county directory-style facility page was seen. Marking the rest 'not published' would claim more than was checked. Found published on the pages that did open: named.
State inspection/oversight: Florida requires every county jail to meet the Florida Model Jail Standards and to be inspected each year, but the inspectors come from other sheriffs' offices, not a state agency, and state law does not require the reports to be published.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Gulf County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff is elected. So are the county commissioners who pay for the jail, and the judges who set bail.

Names verified 2026-09-28 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered