State Prisons in Florida

Florida Department of Corrections - Prisons and Inmate Search

Florida State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

With roughly 80,000 people behind bars and nearly 146,000 more on probation or other community supervision, the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) is the state’s largest agency and the third-largest state prison system in the country. It runs on a budget of about $3.4 billion and employs more than 24,000 people.

Florida’s first state prison opened in 1868 on the grounds of the old federal arsenal at Chattahoochee. For decades afterward the state leased prisoners to private turpentine camps and lumber companies. That convict lease system ended in 1923, two years after 22-year-old Martin Tabert was flogged to death at a lumber camp, a case that drew national outrage. A Division of Corrections was created in 1957, and the agency took its current name in 1978.

How big is the Florida prison system?

FDC lists 143 facilities. Too many to name one by one, they fall into a few groups:

• 50 correctional institutions, the main prisons, including Florida State Prison near Starke (the state’s maximum-security prison and home of the execution chamber) and Union Correctional Institution in Raiford
• Women’s prisons such as Lowell Correctional Institution near Ocala, the largest women’s prison in Florida; about 7% of Florida prisoners are women
• 7 private prisons run under contract, plus 16 annexes and 33 work camps attached to larger prisons
• Work release and reentry: 3 reentry centers, 12 state-run work release centers and 18 run by private providers, where people near the end of a sentence hold outside jobs
• Two road prisons, a forestry camp and a basic training (boot camp) program

Reception: the first stop after sentencing

Men leaving county jails go first to one of several reception centers, including the Reception and Medical Center in Lake Butler, the Central Florida Reception Center in Orlando, the South Florida Reception Center in Doral and the Northwest Florida Reception Center in Chipley. Women are processed at the Florida Women’s Reception Center in Ocala. Staff check health, mental health, education and security risk before assigning a permanent prison, a process that usually takes several weeks. Families should wait until the person reaches that permanent prison before applying to visit, because the approval follows them there.

Looking up a Florida prisoner

FDC’s Offender Search covers people in prison, on community supervision and recently released. Search by name or by the person’s DC number, the ID that must appear on every letter, deposit and visiting form. The results show the current facility, release date and sentence details.

The nation’s busiest death chamber

Florida has the death penalty and, lately, uses it more than any other state. It carried out a record 19 executions in 2025, more than double its previous high, and 13 more by mid-August 2026, over half of all U.S. executions that year. The Death Penalty Information Center counts more than 140 Florida executions since 1976. About 256 people were on death row in August 2026, second only to California. Men are held at Florida State Prison and Union Correctional Institution, and women at the Lowell Annex.

Executions take place at Florida State Prison by a three-drug lethal injection; the electric chair remains an option, and a 2025 law allows any method not ruled unconstitutional. Florida needs only 8 of 12 jurors to recommend death, the lowest threshold in the nation, which the Florida Supreme Court upheld in December 2025. Florida also leads the country in death row exonerations, with 30.

Problems inside the walls

Short staffing has troubled Florida prisons for years, leading the state to lower the minimum hiring age for officers and lengthen shifts. Many prisons have no air conditioning in housing units, and summer heat is a recurring complaint from families and advocates. Abuse cases have drawn scrutiny too. In 2012 Darren Rainey, a mentally ill prisoner at Dade Correctional Institution, died after officers locked him in a scalding shower; the state paid his family $4.5 million in 2018.

Florida juvenile facilities

Young people are the responsibility of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), created as a separate agency in 1994. Unlike most states, Florida runs its juvenile detention centers at the state level, with regional centers from Pensacola to Miami that hold youth while their cases are in court. Youth a judge commits to the state go to residential programs, ranging from non-secure group settings to maximum-risk facilities, most of them operated by private providers under contract with DJJ. Juvenile records are confidential, so parents and guardians should contact DJJ or the youth’s juvenile probation officer directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the Florida Department of Corrections or Department of Juvenile Justice, choose a facility from the list below.

Each prison you click on below will provide specific, detailed information about the facility's: 

• inmate search,
• location,
• contact information,
• directions,
• inmate visitation,
• mail,
• phone accounts,
• money accounts,
• commissary,
• texting and emailing where available, and
• inmate tablet rental where available.