Search Highlands County Jail Inmates

Highlands County Jail Overview

The Highlands County Jail, also called the Highlands County Detention Facility, is run by the Highlands County Sheriff's Office Detention Bureau. It sits at 338 South Orange Street in Sebring, near the downtown government district. It is a county jail, so it holds local arrestees, pretrial detainees, people serving short county sentences, people held on court orders, and people waiting for bond, release, or transfer. Both men and women are held here.

The official rated capacity was not published on the pages reviewed. The Vera Institute reported a 2023 rated capacity of 486.5 beds, while some directories list 512, which is not used here because no official source confirmed it. The Detention Bureau runs the jail through medical, operations, and security divisions, with deputies assigned to booking and to housing units.

The bureau is led by a detention commander, Major Bobby Green, who was promoted to that role in May 2025. A security captain oversees intake, housing, and release, while an operations captain oversees classification, programs, transport, and food services. A nursing administrator leads inmate medical care under physician direction. Sheriff Paul Blackman heads the agency as a whole.

Highlands County Jail Capacity and Population

The Florida Department of Corrections reported an average daily population of 499 at the Highlands County Jail in September 2025, with a pretrial share of 75.6 percent. The July 2025 report listed 504. Set against the Vera 2023 rated capacity of 486.5 beds, the jail runs close to full. The figures below pair the rated capacity with the most recent monthly average.

How to Look Up an Inmate at Highlands County Jail

Use the county jail roster for anyone held at this facility. The Highlands County Sheriff's Office posts a free public roster called Inmate Search. It opens to a single search box and a name list, so a last name is enough to start. For a current booking photo, the free sheriff app shows the mugshot, while the web roster does not.

1. Open the Highlands County Sheriff's Office Inmate Search page.
2. Type the last name into the search box.
3. Browse the result pages and confirm the right person.
4. Click the name to open the profile for charges, arrest date, age, and bond.

If the person was sentenced and sent to state prison, the county roster will not show them. Search the Florida Department of Corrections locator instead, and see the jail inmate records page for how to read each profile.

Highlands County Jail Address and Contact

The jail is in Sebring, and the sheriff's main office and records custodian are a short distance away on South Eucalyptus Street. Use the jail number for custody questions and the records number for older booking or offense records.

Visiting Someone at Highlands County Jail

General population inmates get up to four 30-minute facility visits and up to four 30-minute home internet visits per week. Visits run Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the jail is closed for visits on holidays. You schedule your own visit at the lobby kiosk or online, between 7 days and 24 hours ahead. Same-day visits are not allowed, and only one visitor is allowed at a time. Adult visitors must show a picture ID.

Home internet visits run through the Smart Communications platform as a paid service, which lets a family member visit from home rather than at the lobby. The same weekly limit of four 30-minute sessions applies, and only one visitor joins at a time.

The dress code bars swimsuits, see-through or revealing clothing, spaghetti straps, short shorts, and hats or bandanas, and shorts must not sit more than three inches above the knee. Cell phones, food, drinks, backpacks, and purses stay out of the booth and lobby, and photography is not allowed in the lobby during visits. A supervisor makes the final call on attire, and disruptive or intoxicated behavior can end a visit or bar future ones. The visitation help line is 888-253-5178.

Mail, Phone, and Money at Highlands County Jail

Postal mail runs through a scanning vendor, not the jail address. Since September 2022, mail goes to Smart Communications, Highlands County Detention Facility, with the inmate name and booking or ID number, P.O. Box 9166, Seminole, FL 33775-9166. Mail sent to the jail itself is returned. Money for commissary is deposited online through the funds vendor using facility number 233870 plus the inmate name and MNI number. The table lists the main services.

The sheriff's inmate funds page names the deposit, care-package, and calling vendors in one spot. The Highlands County inmate funds page is the official source.

That page also points released inmates to the vendor login where they can download their own messages and scanned mail for free.

The mail system has a few details worth knowing. Regular postal mail is scanned and shown to inmates on kiosks rather than handed over on paper. Friends and family can subscribe to a mail tracker to see delivery status, get rejection notices, and download copies of processed mail. The clearest way to avoid a returned letter is to address it to the scanning vendor in Seminole, not to the jail itself, with the inmate name and booking or ID number printed on the outside.

Booking and Intake at Highlands County Jail

Booking is the intake step that creates the roster record. The sheriff's Security Division runs intake and release. Each new arrival is fingerprinted, photographed, told the charges, and given a chance to call a family member or a bondsman when bond applies. After intake, classification interviews the person, assigns a security housing level, and tracks the sentence length. Housing deputies then handle meals, medication, bedding, and daily needs.

Release works through the same Security Division. Deputies process people bonding out or meeting other release terms so the correct person is freed under the right legal conditions. A booking shows on the roster soon after intake, though the agency did not publish a fixed refresh time, and the record drops off the public roster once the person is released or transferred.

Requesting Records and Other Lookup Channels

The online roster only shows current inmates, so older booking, offense, or incident records come from the sheriff's records custodian. You can request them by email to central records, by phone at 863-402-7232, by fax, or by mail or in person at 400 South Eucalyptus Street in Sebring. Online report requests must be picked up at that office, not mailed. The records unit also provides local background checks and copies of offense and incident reports for cases in the sheriff's jurisdiction.

If a report was taken by a city police department, such as Sebring, Avon Park, or Lake Placid, or by the Florida Highway Patrol, the sheriff directs you to contact that agency instead. For a current photo of someone in custody, the free sheriff app shows the mugshot, as covered on the jail roster mugshots page.

About Highlands County Jail

The jail offers inmate programs through the Operations Division, including religious services, substance-abuse programming, and mental-health counseling. A Community Maintenance Program lets sentenced people work weekends or weekdays instead of full incarceration. The Transportation unit moves inmates for medical care, for delivery to state prison, and for pickups from other county jails. Food Services provides dietician-certified meals.

The jail must meet state rules as well. Florida law requires county detention facilities to report monthly population data to the state and to adopt at least the Florida Model Jail Standards, which cover sanitation, bedding, food, medical care, and the separation of different inmate groups. In January 2024, the Associated Press reported the death of a Highlands County detention deputy, and the agency has continued to run its sheriff app as an official inmate-search channel.