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Virginia regional jails, county jails, and city jails

Virginia has 95 counties and 38 independent cities. An independent city is not inside a county. That is why a search here has to start with the place of the arrest, not with a county map. Richmond, Norfolk, Alexandria, and Roanoke are cities. Fairfax, Chesterfield, and Henrico are counties. A person booked in one is not in the other.

Three kinds of adult jails cover the state. A county jail serves one county, and the sheriff usually runs it. A city jail serves one independent city, and a sheriff or a city corrections department runs it. A regional jail is neither. Counties and cities pool money, appoint a board, and build one facility, or a string of them, that takes bookings from every member. The Board of Local and Regional Jails sets the standards and lists the facilities. It does not run them.

The regional map is the part families miss. Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority runs several buildings for the Lynchburg area. Southwest Virginia Regional Jail runs buildings in Abingdon, Duffield, Haysi, and Tazewell. Meherrin River Regional Jail serves Brunswick, Dinwiddie, and Mecklenburg. Its Mecklenburg building has been temporarily closed. Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George takes Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, and surrounding counties. Rappahannock Regional Jail covers Stafford, Spotsylvania, and Fredericksburg. Prince William-Manassas, Pamunkey, Piedmont, New River Valley, Northern Neck, Northwestern, Middle River, Rockingham-Harrisonburg, and Western Tidewater are the same idea in other parts of the state. Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth closed after the member cities decided they could not staff it. People who were there went back to Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Hampton, and Newport News.

Jails in Virginia hold people before trial and people serving a misdemeanor or a short felony. A year or less stays local. A longer felony sentence is a state sentence, and the person can still sit in a local or regional jail until the Department of Corrections has a bed. The department pays a per diem for that. A federal hold is billed to the Marshals. The state prisons families ask about include Greensville, Sussex, River North, and the women’s prisons at Fluvanna and Goochland. Those are not jails.

How regional jails differ from county and city jails

A county jail answers to one sheriff and one board of supervisors. A city jail answers to one city. A regional jail answers to an authority board made of the member jurisdictions. The daily rate, the medical contract, and the tablet vendor are set by that board, not by the county where the person was arrested. A family in a member county may have to drive to a jail two counties away. Search the county or city of the arrest. The listing shows the regional jail if that is where the person was taken.

How many juvenile detention centers are there in Virginia?

Youth detention follows the same split. Some independent cities and large counties run their own juvenile detention center. Others share a regional juvenile detention center, paid for by the members. A youth in one of those centers is usually waiting on a hearing. A commitment goes to the Department of Juvenile Justice. Bon Air in Chesterfield is the state juvenile correctional center. It is not a county or city jail. Search the place of the arrest. The listing shows the local or regional detention center, and Bon Air only if the youth has been committed.

What the first days in a Virginia jail are like

The first day depends on which kind of jail took the booking. In Richmond or Norfolk it is a city jail. In Fairfax it is a county jail. In Stafford it is Rappahannock Regional, and the person may not be in the county of the arrest. The steps are the same. Name, prints, a medical screen, a search, clothes in a bag, one call if the phones are working. The person has not been convicted. There is no phone in the cell, and no way to know if the job, the truck, or the kids got covered. Glasses stay in property until somebody signs for them.

The hard part is the ordinary part. The uniform does not fit. The bunk is thin, and the next bed is awake. Meals are plain and on a clock. Mail is slow. A visit to a regional jail can be a drive across two counties, and it may be canceled. Withdrawal from alcohol, opioids, or methamphetamine can start before the bond hearing, and the night is when that gets loud. Officers who apply the rules the same way to everybody run a quieter pod. Uneven rules are how contraband moves. A large regional jail can separate by risk. A small city jail often cannot.

Tablets, video visits, and deposits take some of the isolation out of the bigger jails. A message home does not fix the bed or the case, and the account can be shut off. Each jail page on this site lists the phone, the vendor, and the way to send money for that sheriff, city, or regional authority.