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

The Detention Center

Suwannee County Jail

Operated bySuwannee County Sheriff's Office
Jail address305 Pine Avenue, Live Oak, FL 32064
Authorized capacity235 inmates (sheriff's jail page)
Accreditation claimedFlorida Corrections Accreditation Commission since 2004 (statement; no report posted)
Who is heldMales, females and juveniles charged as adults, arrested by the sheriff, Live Oak Police and state agencies

Source: Suwannee County Sheriff's Office — Suwannee County Jail · checked 2026-09-28

Transparency rating

4/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✓Beds and daily population
✓What it costs taxpayers
✗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 — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Suwannee County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-28. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

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

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds235 (authorized capacity)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Sam St. John

Runs the jailYes — "The Sheriff operates the Suwannee County Jail" (sheriff's jail page)
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
Office200 Ohio Avenue South, Live Oak, Florida

Still needed

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

Source: Suwannee County Sheriff's Office — About 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 Suwannee County

Circuit Court: Florida's Third Judicial Circuit, which also serves Columbia, Dixie, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison and Taylor (Fla. Stat. 26.021). Circuit judges are elected circuit-wide to six-year terms and hear felonies.
County Court: the Suwannee 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 first and third Tuesday, 5:30 p.m.
The boardSuwannee County Board of County Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Sheriff's site (suwanneesheriff.com) opened: home, jail page, about-the-sheriff, finance page and the SmartWEB inmate lookup (current-inmates filter, bond amounts shown).
Budget: the Clerk & Comptroller posts annual county budgets FY2020-21 to FY2026-27 and states the budget funds the constitutional officers including the Sheriff. The budget PDFs opened as image-only, so the sheriff/jail line itself could not be read.
The sheriff's Finance page posts no budget figures.
No PREA, bond-posting guidance, fee rates, deaths-in-custody or inspection material found on the sheriff's site. Phone is collect-call (Invision Telecom); video visits via HomeWAV; no rates posted.
County site links a contracts library on Municode; not opened, so contracts not scored.
What was tried: http://www.suwanneesheriff.com/ (refused, PROVENANCE_REQUIRED) then https://suwanneesheriff.com/ opened after search; three county budget PDFs had no machine-readable text.
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 Suwannee 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