The Detention Center
St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center
- Operated bySt. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office
- LocationCenterville, Louisiana, per the sheriff's jail page; no street address published
- WardenMajor Charles Parker Jr., Warden, St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center (sheriff's administration page)
- BedsThe sheriff's jail page says the facility "houses 320 inmates"
- Current populationThe sheriff's own roster listed 287 people in custody when opened on the research date
- Who is heldThe jail page says it holds Department of Corrections prisoners and inmates of local municipal and tribal law enforcement agencies; no housing agreement or rate is published
- ProgramsGED and a Transitional Work Program (337-836-5520)
- Food serviceThe jail page says contracted food services save taxpayers approximately $300,000 a year
- RosterCurrent and released rosters on the sheriff's own domain, showing charges and bond amounts
- Jail line337-836-9509
- What was triedSheriff's home, jail, administration, contact and current-roster pages were opened. A parish government URL (stmaryparishla.gov, not returned by search) was refused with PROVENANCE_REQUIRED and not retried.
Source: St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office - Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓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 — 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
- BedsThe sheriff's jail page says the Law Enforcement Center "houses 320 inmates"
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Gary Driskell
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office operates the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center
- 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
- Tenure publishedThe sheriff's administration page says he was elected in fall 2023 with 77% of the vote in a four-candidate race, was sworn in early in February 2024 after the death of Sheriff Blaise Smith to finish Smith's term, and took office in his own term on July 1, 2024
- Headquarters500 Main St, 4th Floor, Franklin, LA 70538; 337.828.1960 or 985.384.1622. Branch office: 1455 Railroad Ave, Morgan City, LA 70380
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office - Administration · 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. No page opened names the judicial district, so none is recorded.
- 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.
- The sheriff runs his own domain, stmaryso.com; it was the only first-party source that could be opened. The parish government's site was not examined.
- The roster check is yes: the current roster is published on the sheriff's own domain and lists bond amounts per person.
- The capacity check is yes: the jail page states the facility houses 320 inmates and the sheriff's live roster gives the current count (287 when opened).
- The contracts check is no: the jail page says the facility holds state, municipal and tribal prisoners, but no agreement or per-day rate is published. The only state rate that may be stated is the DOC per diem of $26.39 per day under R.S. 15:824(B)(1)(a); nothing on the sheriff's site states it.
- The bond_info check is no: bond amounts appear on the roster, but no guidance on how to post bail was found. No budget, PREA material, fees, in-custody death or inspection report was found.
- The seat is recorded as Franklin from the sheriff's contact page, which places headquarters at 500 Main St, Franklin; the page does not use the words 'parish seat'.
- Every page opened identifies St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. Commercial lookup sites in the search results (stmaryparishrecords.us, louisianaprisonroster.org, countyoffice.org, sthelenaso.org) were not used.
- Not found. The parish government's own site could not be opened (refused with PROVENANCE_REQUIRED), so its form of government and members are not recorded here.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in St. Mary 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