The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byFranklin County Sheriff's Office
- Regional correctional facilityJefferson/Franklin County Correctional Facility — holds state prisoners under an MDOC contract
- Regional facility address279 MS Hwy 33, Fayette, MS 39069 (MDOC facilities page)
Source: Mississippi Department of Corrections — Facilities · checked 2026-09-29
Transparency rating
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 Tom Tindle
- CurrentNamed in the Mississippi Sheriffs' Association directory; not confirmed on a county page
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is the jailer by law (Miss. Code § 19-25-71)
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Mailing addressP.O. Box 396, Meadville (directory)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Mississippi Sheriffs' Association directory · checked 2026-09-29
The Judges
Mississippi's circuit judges are elected state judges who hear felony cases. Bail is often first set at an initial appearance by a justice court judge, elected by district within the county, or by a county or municipal judge.
Who sets bail in Franklin County
- Circuit Court: Mississippi's Sixth Circuit Court District, which also serves Adams, Amite and Wilkinson. Circuit judges are elected district-wide to four-year terms and hear felony cases.
- Justice Court: Franklin County's justice court judges are elected by district within the county and often set bail at the first appearance.
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-29
The Board of Supervisors
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe county budget, including the sheriff's office and the jail, and the jail building itself. Five supervisors, each elected from a district. In fifteen counties, the county also runs a regional correctional facility that holds state prisoners under a contract with the Department of Corrections.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. By law the sheriff is the jailer of the county and hires the jailers (Miss. Code 19-25-71). No state agency inspects the jail.
- The boardFranklin County Board of Supervisors
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- No county or sheriff page could be opened, so the ten checks are left unscored.
- What was tried: franklincoms.weebly.com (the county website Wikipedia lists; https and http both refused), franklincountyms.gov and franklincountyms.org (refused).
- The group's search cap was reached before a search could be spent on this county.
- The regional correctional facility shared with Jefferson County is in Fayette, not in Franklin County; it holds state prisoners and is separate from the county jail. MDOC's page gives no bed count.
- Sheriff name is the Sheriffs' Association directory lead only.
- State inspection/oversight: Mississippi has no state agency that inspects county jails. The State Department of Health's jail inspections ended when the Legislature stopped funding them in 2017.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Franklin 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 supervisors who pay for the jail, and the judges who set bail.
Names verified 2026-09-29 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered