Forrest County Adult Detention Center Inmate Lookup

Forrest County Adult Detention Center Overview

The Forrest County Adult Detention Center is operated by the Forrest County Sheriff's Office at 55 Arena Drive in Hattiesburg. The county government page identifies Sheriff Charlie Sims as the sheriff, and the research file ties the jail's direct detention and booking line to (601) 545-6148. This is the primary local custody facility for adult Forrest County arrests, county pretrial detention, county jail sentences, bondable jail custody, sheriff trustees, state trustees, and people waiting on transfer or hold decisions.

The facility should not be confused with the courthouse offices downtown or with the Mississippi Department of Corrections work center elsewhere in Hattiesburg. Jail visits, packages, bond windows, booking questions, and roster questions belong to the Arena Drive detention center. Court-file questions may later move to Justice Court, Circuit Court, the Circuit Clerk, the prosecutor, or Mississippi Electronic Courts after charges are filed.

The sheriff's detention page gives unusually specific housing and visitation labels. Tuesday visits are organized by Females, T-pod, 102 Pod, ISO, OBS, and 103 Pod groups, while State Trustee and Sheriff's Trustee visitation is handled separately on the 2nd and 4th Saturday. Those labels are useful when calling the jail because a visitor may need to know the person's housing group before asking about visit eligibility or timing.

Forrest County Adult Detention Center Capacity and Population

The Forrest County Sheriff's Office pages reviewed for this build do not publish a current official rated capacity. The best sourced jail-capacity number in the research is the Vera Institute of Justice county dataset, which reports Forrest County jail rated capacity as 600 beds for 2022 and 2023. Vera's 2023 Forrest County row also reports a jail population of 282, including 247 male inmates, 35 female inmates, and 236 people in pretrial custody.

Those figures should be treated as county dataset numbers, not as a live sheriff dashboard. The current headcount can change through arrests, releases, bond postings, court orders, hospital or evaluation moves, state transfers, and outside-agency holds. For a same-day custody answer, use the sheriff's current roster first and then call the Adult Correctional Facility line if the roster is unavailable, delayed, or unclear.

How to Look Up an Inmate at Forrest County Adult Detention Center

Use the sheriff's official roster route for current county jail custody. The Forrest County Sheriff's Inmate Roster page links to the Public Safety Cloud/JailTracker roster at Forrest County JailTracker. The sheriff page describes that link as the complete roster of current inmates. During research, the vendor page loaded as a JavaScript shell, so exact public search fields and profile labels were not confirmed from text capture.

1. Open the sheriff's inmate roster landing page and follow the link to the Public Safety Cloud/JailTracker roster.
2. Search or browse for the person's name when the dynamic roster loads.
3. Confirm that the person is held in Forrest County Adult Detention Center custody, not in MDOC, federal, or immigration custody.
4. If a profile is available, review the visible custody details, but confirm bond, release eligibility, and visit status with the jail before acting on them.

If the roster does not load, call the Adult Correctional Facility or booking line at (601) 545-6148. If the person has already been sentenced to state custody, search the Mississippi Department of Corrections inmate search by name or MDOC ID instead of the county roster. Federal sentenced inmates belong in the BOP inmate locator, immigration custody belongs in ICE ODLS, and status notifications may be available through VINELink.

Forrest County Adult Detention Center Address and Contact

Use the jail's direct number for immediate custody, booking, visitation, package, and bond questions. The Sheriff's Office main and dispatch number is separate, and the county courthouse addresses are not the place to go for a jail visit or package delivery. Public records copies, older booking records, and reports should use the sheriff's public-records request process rather than a same-day visitation call.

Visiting Someone at Forrest County Adult Detention Center

The sheriff's detention page says visitors must call before setting up a visit at 601-545-6148. Tuesday is the standard visitation day, and visitors must call between 8:15 and 11:00AM to sign up. No one is added to the list after 11:00AM. Visitors must complete an application, bring valid photo identification, be at least 18, arrive with both approved visitors present at the same time, and follow search, dress, behavior, tobacco, purse, and cell-phone restrictions.

The official Forrest County Sheriff's correctional facility page lists the local visitation, package, money, bond, and facility-contact rules used for this page.

The screenshot is useful because the county jail rules are schedule-specific. Tuesday visits, trustee visits, package hours, and bond hours each have different windows, so a phone confirmation is still important before traveling to Arena Drive.

There is no visitation on the 5th Tuesday of a month. If Tuesday is a holiday, the sheriff's page says visitation resumes the following Thursday. Ordinary visits are listed as 20 minutes, and no contact visits are allowed without direct approval of the Sheriff.

Mail, Phone, and Money at Forrest County Adult Detention Center

Mail and packages use the inmate's name and the Arena Drive jail address. Packages are accepted Monday through Friday from 8:00AM to 12:00PM and 1:00PM to 4:30PM, but all packages are searched. Contraband includes drugs, alcohol, weapons, keys, tobacco, and items inmates are not allowed to possess. The sheriff page says contraband can lead to arrest or prosecution.

Allowed package items are narrow. The research identifies up to $100 cash and one soft-bound religious text ordered from and delivered by a reputable source such as Amazon or Books-A-Million. Canteen items such as hygiene items, snacks, envelopes, notepads, and stamps may not be received in packages. Trustee packages follow a separate monthly rule, with each trustee allowed a box on the 15th of each month and late boxes requiring Major approval.

Bond Posting at the Adult Detention Center

Bond questions should be confirmed with the jail before money changes hands because a person may have a no-bond order, another county warrant, a probation or parole hold, a federal hold, an ICE detainer, or a court condition that prevents release. The research lists Forrest County bond hours as Monday through Friday from 9:00AM to 12:00PM, 1:00PM to 4:00PM, and 7:00PM to 12:00AM. Saturday and Sunday bonding is listed from 9:00AM to 4:00PM.

Tuesday is different because of visitation. On Tuesday, the jail lists bonding only from 7:00PM to 12:00AM. A person released on bond still has court obligations, and the booking charge shown at or near arrest may differ from the formal charge later filed by the prosecutor or court.

Booking and Intake at Forrest County Adult Detention Center

The sheriff's public pages do not publish a full intake manual, but the local process described in the research is consistent with county jail booking. After arrest or commitment, the person is transported to the Adult Detention Center, identified, searched, screened for security and medical concerns, processed for property and booking records, and assigned to custody or housing status. The public roster may list the person while they remain in current county custody, but the research did not confirm how quickly every new booking appears online.

Reasons a person may not appear on the current roster include a recent booking that has not surfaced in the dynamic system, release, transfer, hospital or evaluation status, juvenile handling, state DOC transfer, federal or immigration custody, or a name-entry mismatch. When the public roster and family information conflict, call the jail line for immediate custody confirmation and use the public-records request process for copies of older or non-current records.

About Forrest County Adult Detention Center

The detention center sits at the same Arena Drive address used by the Sheriff's Office, but it serves a different purpose from the courthouse and clerk offices downtown. Forrest County's Circuit Clerk is at 630 Main Street, Justice Court is at 700 Main Street, and the county seat is Hattiesburg. That local layout matters because bond, visit, and package business runs through the jail, while case dockets and formal charges run through court offices after filing.

Research did not locate an official construction history, current sheriff-published capacity, accreditation status, death-in-custody page, or conditions dashboard for the Adult Detention Center. The sheriff's public-records request process is the documented route for copies of records not posted online. The Sheriff's Office also posts wanted and most-wanted pages, but those are public-safety notices and should not be treated as a complete booking-photo archive.