The Detention Center
Lamar County Jail
- Operated byLamar County Sheriff's Office
- Jail phone(601) 794-1088
- Canteen deposit feesBy phone from $3.95; online from $2.95 (Access Corrections); by mail $3.00 processing fee
- PhoneDeposits via CSGPay / Correct Solutions; one free 5-minute call weekly
- VisitationRemote visits via JailATM; one free remote visit weekly
Source: Lamar County Sheriff — canteen and visitation info · checked 2026-09-29
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 — 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
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 Danny Rigel
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is the jailer by law (Miss. Code 19-25-71); the Sheriff's Office posts the Lamar County Jail canteen and visitation rules
- How the office is filledElected, four-year term
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Lamar County — Departments · 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 Lamar County
- Circuit Court: Mississippi's Fifteenth Circuit Court District, which also serves Jefferson Davis, Lawrence, Marion and Pearl River. Circuit judges are elected district-wide to four-year terms and hear felony cases.
- Justice Court: Lamar 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.
- NoteSteve Lampton (D1), Warren Byrd (D2), Terry Bass (D3), Mitch Brent (D4), Dale Lucus (D5). Agendas posted; minutes not found. Sept 8, 2026 agenda lists approval of the FY2027 budget.
- The boardLamar County Board of Supervisors →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site (sheriff.lamarcountyms.gov) is a near-empty 'coming soon' page with PDFs on allowable items, property drop-off, canteen/visitation and deposits.
- Canteen deposit fees published ($3.95 phone, $2.95 online, $3.00 mail); credited as fees.
- County's sheriff page links a JailTracker roster, but it returned an error when opened, so roster is not credited.
- No capacity, budget document, bond guidance, PREA, deaths, contracts or inspections published. Agenda of Sept 8, 2026 approves the FY2027 budget, but the budget itself was not found on the site.
- What was tried: lamarcounty.com guessed domain refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED).
- 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 Lamar 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