The Detention Center
Riverbend Detention Center
- Operated byEast Carroll Parish Sheriff's Office
- Jail address9450 Highway 65 South, Lake Providence (the PREA report gives 9450 U.S. 65, Lake Providence, Louisiana 71254)
- Jail lines(318) 559-5980; (318) 559-3447; 318-559-0942
- Also called"East Carroll Parish Riverbend Detention Center" on the sheriff's roster page
- PREA auditInitial PREA audit by William Peck; onsite 07/05/2022-07/07/2022; final report 02/12/2023; all 45 standards met, none exceeded, none not met
- Beds and population (2022)The PREA report gives a designed capacity of 1,560, a population of 1,443 at the audit and an average daily population of 1,280 over the prior 12 months
- Warden (2022)The PREA report names Johnny Hedgemon as Warden/Jail Administrator; no current warden is named on the sheriff's pages
- RosterThe sheriff's Inmate Roster page opened is a disclaimer page; no list of names was seen
- Visitation and commissaryVideo visitation through Securus; commissary deposits through an outside vendor portal; no rates published
- What was triedSheriff's home, sheriff, inmate roster and contact pages and the Riverbend PREA report on ecsheriff.com; Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory. No parish government (police jury) page was returned by search. Wikipedia and commercial inmate-lookup results were not used.
Source: East Carroll Sheriff's Office - Contact · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓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
- ✗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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds1,560 designed capacity (Riverbend PREA audit report, final 02/12/2023)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Wydette Williams
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's site lists the Riverbend Detention Center and its roster page
- 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; the parish governing authority maintains the jail building and provides the jail physician (R.S. 15:702, 15:703)
- Tenure publishedThe sheriff's own page says Wydette Williams has served since 2012
- Office addressesCourthouse, 400 First Street, Lake Providence, LA 71254, (318) 559-2800; Annex, 301 First Street, Lake Providence, (318) 559-2071
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: East Carroll Sheriff's Office - Sheriff · 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.
- 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.
- East Carroll Parish, not West Carroll: the sheriff's pages at ecsheriff.com identify East Carroll and Lake Providence.
- The prea check is yes: the sheriff's home page links the final PREA audit report for Riverbend Detention Center (final report 02/12/2023), which records all 45 standards met. The auditor's narrative also notes concerns about possible underreporting and says compliance findings rested largely on policy review; that is the auditor's own observation.
- The capacity check is no: the PREA report on the sheriff's domain gives 2022 capacity and population figures, but no current daily population is published.
- The roster check is no: the Inmate Roster page opened showed only a disclaimer, no list of people in custody.
- No housing agreement or rate, budget, bond guidance, fees, deaths or inspection report was found. The parish seat (Lake Providence) comes from the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory.
- Not found. No East Carroll Parish government page was returned by the search spent on this parish, so the form of government and its members were not read from a parish page and are not recorded.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in East Carroll 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