The Detention Center
West Carroll Parish Jail
- Operated byWest Carroll Parish Sheriff's Department
- Jail address305 East Main Street, Oak Grove, LA 71263 (as given on the sheriff's visitation page)
- WardenRandy Aaron, Warden (sheriff's staff page; the LSA directory calls him "Parish-wide Warden")
- Visitation"Inmate visitation must be scheduled through the Warden"; the page says visits are "restricted due to Covid-19 until further notice"
- RosterNone on the sheriff's own site; the search returned a roster at westcarroll.lavns.org (not opened, not the sheriff's own domain)
- BedsNot published on the pages opened
- What was triedOne search returned no parish or sheriff page; the sheriff's domain was taken from the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory (opened). Opened: westcarrollsheriff.net home, staff, meet-the-sheriff, inmate-visitation. No parish-government (police jury) page was reached.
Source: West Carroll Sheriff's Department - Inmate Visitation · 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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Scott D. Mathews
- Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's department lists the West Carroll Parish Jail and a warden on its own staff
- How the office is filledElected parish sheriff; keeper of the public jail of the parish (La. R.S. 15:704)
- TenureThe Louisiana Sheriffs' Association directory states Sheriff Mathews assumed office in 2020
- Office305 E. Main Street, P.O. Box 744, Oak Grove, LA 71263; 318-428-2331
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: West Carroll Sheriff's Department - Staff · 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.
- This is West Carroll Parish, not East Carroll; the sheriff's site is westcarrollsheriff.net and the office is in Oak Grove.
- The search results included an encyclopedia entry for a "West Carroll Parish Detention Center"; it is not a source for this record and was not opened, so no second facility is recorded. The sheriff's own site names only the West Carroll Parish Jail.
- Checks were judged on the sheriff's own site only; the parish government's site was not examined.
- Not found. No West Carroll Parish government page was opened, so the form of government and the members' names are not recorded here.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in West 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