Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Avoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office Detention Center One

Operated byAvoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office
Detention Center One (male)675 Government St., Marksville, LA 71351; capacity "400 offenders"; (318)253-4000 ext. 2
Detention Center Three (female)641 Choupique Lane, Cottonport, LA 71327; capacity "300 female offenders"
Corrections leadership (as published)Director of Corrections: Vacant; Detention Center One Warden: Eric Silas; Detention Center Three Warden: Vacant
ProgramsEducation classes and a TWP program for trustees (corrections page)
Inmate mailSent c/o Smart Communication, Avoyelles Parish Jail, 675 Government Street, Marksville
Inmate depositsOnline through inmatefinancial.com, $7.95 per transaction; in person at the Tax Office by postal money order or cashier's check
RosterLinked to avoyelles.lavns.org, an outside vendor domain; not opened
What was triedSheriff's home, corrections, inmate-banking and budget pages (read). The budget page showed no budget documents in its readable content. No parish police jury page was returned by search or opened.

Source: Avoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office — Corrections · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

1/10Closed

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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Avoyelles Parish publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-18. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the parish 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
Beds700 across two facilities as published: Detention Center One "400 offenders"; Detention Center Three "300 female offenders"

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff David L. Dauzat

Runs the jailYes — the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office runs a Corrections Department with two detention centers
How the office is filledElected parish sheriff
Statutory basisLa. R.S. 15:704 makes each sheriff the keeper of the public jail of his parish; under R.S. 15:702 and 15:703 the parish governing authority maintains the jail building and provides the jail physician
Name as publishedThe sheriff's home page (copyright 2026) carries a 2024 notice: "Avoyelles Parish Sheriff David L. Dauzat would like to warn you that scammers..."; no biography page was opened
Office address675 Government Street, Marksville, Louisiana 71351; (318)253-4000

Still needed

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

Source: Avoyelles Parish Sheriff's Office — home page · checked 2026-09-18

The Judges

Louisiana district judges are elected in partisan elections to six-year terms. They are state judicial officers, not parish officials. Who sets bail at first appearance varies by parish — a district judge on rotation, a magistrate or commissioner, or in some parishes a justice of the peace — and Louisiana's bail statutes do not require that first appearance to happen in open court.

Still needed

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

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-18

The Parish Governing Authority

They maintain the jail building. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe physical maintenance of the parish jail and the jail physician (La. R.S. 15:702, 15:703).
What they don'tCustody of the jail. Under La. R.S. 15:704 the elected sheriff is “the keeper of the public jail of his parish.”
The governing bodyNo governing-body page was found on the parish's own site

Notes on the record

Louisiana has no general parish-jail inspection law. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections monitors compliance with its Basic Jail Guidelines at least annually, but only for jails that house state inmates for the state per diem; no public repository of those compliance reports was located.
Fees is recorded no: the sheriff publishes the $7.95 online deposit fee, but no phone, video-visit or commissary rates.
Budget is recorded no: the sheriff's site has a Budget page, but no budget document was visible in its readable content.
Roster is recorded no on a strict reading: the roster link goes to an outside vendor's domain (lavns.org).
Capacity is recorded no: beds are published for both detention centers, but no daily population.
Commercial inmate-lookup sites returned by search were ignored.
Parish seat from CCCarto's Louisiana parish-seat list (https://www.cccarto.com/countyseats/louisiana/), checked 18 September 2026.
Not found — no page of the Avoyelles Parish governing authority was opened, so its form and members are not recorded.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Avoyelles Parish 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 who runs this jail is elected. So is the parish governing body that pays for it.

Names verified 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered