The Detention Center
Tupelo/Lee County Adult Jail (Lee County Adult Detention Center)
- Operated byLee County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address510 N. Commerce Street, Tupelo, MS 38804
- Rated capacityApproximately 200 prisoners
- Year built1997
- MedicalPhysicians and nurses through a partnership with NMMC Residency Center
- Inmate Work CenterOld Lee County Jail, 301 North Front Street, Tupelo — non-violent inmate workers for county and municipal labor
- Vendors namedPhones and video visits: City Tele Coin; commissary: Tiger Correctional Services — no rates published
- Jail AdministratorCaptain Ronnie Partlow, Jail Administrator
Source: Lee County Sheriff — Adult Detention Center · checked 2026-09-29
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 built1997
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsApproximately 200
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jim H. Johnson
- Runs the jailYes — the sheriff is the jailer by law (Miss. Code 19-25-71); the sheriff's site hosts the Adult Detention Center page
- 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: Lee County Sheriff's Office · 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 Lee County
- Circuit Court: Mississippi's First Circuit Court District, which also serves Alcorn, Itawamba, Monroe, Pontotoc, Prentiss and Tishomingo. Circuit judges are elected district-wide to four-year terms and hear felony cases.
- Justice Court: Lee 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.
- NoteCounty government site could not be opened by our reader; no board page or minutes examined.
- The boardLee County Board of Supervisors
- Where the jail money is decidedNot found
Notes on the record
- Sheriff's site names Sheriff Jim H. Johnson and Jail Administrator Captain Ronnie Partlow; jail built 1997, about 200 prisoners.
- Inmate Search page on the sheriff's site links the Lee roster on an outside host (tcsi-roster.azurewebsites.net); that host refused our reader (robots.txt).
- Visitor page names phone, video-visit and commissary vendors but lists no rates; no bond, PREA, deaths, inspection or contract material found.
- What was tried: leecoms.com (root and /board-of-supervisors) refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED); county budget and board minutes not examined.
- 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 Lee 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