The Detention Center
Okeechobee County Jail
- Operated byOkeechobee County Sheriff's Office (Corrections Division)
- Rated capacity344 beds
- LayoutFour housing units of various custody levels and 2 negative pressure rooms
- Staff75 in the Corrections Division, 58 sworn
- Sheriff's Office address (legal mail)504 NW 4th Street, Okeechobee, FL 34972
- Phones, video visits and mailHomeWAV (TextBehind for mail)
- CommissaryJailCanteen.com; deposits via JailATM
Source: Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office — Corrections · checked 2026-09-28
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds344 (sheriff's Corrections page)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Noel E. Stephen
- Runs the jailYes — the Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office Corrections Division runs the Okeechobee County Jail
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- In office sinceSworn in 3 January 2017 as the 17th Sheriff of Okeechobee County (sheriff's site)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office — Meet the Sheriff · 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 Okeechobee County
- Circuit Court: Florida's Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, which also serves Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie (Fla. Stat. 26.021). Circuit judges are elected circuit-wide to six-year terms and hear felonies.
- County Court: the Okeechobee County Court. County judges are elected countywide to six-year terms and hear misdemeanors.
- 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.
- NoteCounty site co.okeechobee.fl.us opened and names the Board, but our reader could not extract its agenda/minutes links.
- The boardOkeechobee County Board of County Commissioners
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Old lead sheriff.co.okeechobee.fl.us no longer resolves; the sheriff's current site okeesheriff.org opened and confirmed Okeechobee County, Florida.
- Corrections page: 'a total bed capacity of 344'.
- Fees published: HomeWAV video and phone calls $0.11 per minute, text messages $0.03, video messages $0.40.
- Inmate Search page sits in the sheriff's Jail section; the embedded search tool itself did not render for our reader.
- Bond: only a link to the HomeWAV vendor's bail-bonds page; no bond guidance of the sheriff's own, so bond_info = no.
- Budget: Administration page links an FY20 sheriff budget spreadsheet, but the link returned 404. No current budget found.
- No PREA, deaths, inspection or contract material found on the sheriff's site.
- County seat not stated on any page opened.
- What was tried: http(s)://www.sheriff.co.okeechobee.fl.us (name does not resolve); www.okeechobeesheriff.org (connection timeout); FY20 budget xlsx (404).
- 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 Okeechobee 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