Explore Alachua County Mugshot for Free (Public Records Access)

Browse official resources and perform an Alachua County mugshot search today to find individuals currently held in custody.

Under the Florida Sunshine Law, all municipal, county, and state records are open to the public for examination and copying; such records include arrest and criminal records, with the exception of some information that may compromise the privacy of any individuals.

Quicken your search by using the resources and following the methods outlined in this article to find mugshots of various offenders from local to state records custodians proficiently.

Free Options for Searching Mugshot Databases in Alachua County FL

There are several cases where people have the same name and because of that, it might get harder for you to find the correct record of the person you are looking for. On the other hand, you may have the information of an individual but you haven’t seen the face of that person yet. This is where mugshots will come into play.

Mugshots, also known as police photographs, are pictures of various individuals taken just after they were arrested by any arresting law enforcement agency, which will be added to their record.

To get the most trusted information, you should use the databases provided by the official custodians of these records.

Law enforcement agencies, under different government levels –municipal police departments, county sheriff’s office, state department of corrections, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons – are the departments where you may look for arrest and criminal records of a citizen.

These departments are either the arresting agencies or are responsible for the supervision of jail or prison inmates. They keep records of various arrestees which can either be requested in several methods or be browsed through their online search tools for free. This will be explained further in this article.

Steps To Access Alachua County Mugshots Through Official Records

The citizens of Alachua County are under the protection of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office providing law enforcement services and information that is deemed important for the safety of each individual. The agency also supervises the county jail housing hundreds of inmates serving their sentences.

The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office has an inmate lookup that will help you find the information – including mugshots – of incarcerated local residents housed at the Department of the Jail by entering the name or booking number to search for a specific individual or by clicking the “View All” option to see the inmate jail roster or list of all inmates.¹

The inmate list or search results will show the profile’s MNI (Master Name Index) number, last name, first name, middle name, booking date/time, age, race, sex, POD, and mugshot.

For more information about an individual, you may also process a public records request submitting it in person, by email, by phone, or through online form.²

You may also use the VINELink website to find the mugshot of an offender or get or receive a real time notification of the current status of a certain incarcerated inmate within Florida.³

If you’re interested, check out the rest of the public records available in Alachua County, Florida – including marital, divorce, court, and other pertinent documents.

Supporting Jail Inmates: Visitation, Communication, Bail & More

The Department of Jail, under the responsibility of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, is a 314,000 sq. ft. facility that houses incarcerated adult male and female offenders for up to one (1) year with a 975 highest number of recorded inmate population.

To facilitate the rehabilitation of these inmates, the department provides inmate handbooks to help these detainees know their rights and the rights of others including the staff while they are still in jail and various services for the offenders and their families’ convenience.⁴

Inmate Visitation: To visit an inmate, you must schedule your visitation 24 hours in advance through the Securus Technologies website by clicking the “Schedule Onsite Communication” for onsite visits (up to 2 free hours of visit per week) or “Remote Video” for internet visits (up to two (2) paid visits per week for $7.95 each session within 30 minutes).

A refund of the payment for the visit is available based on the hours the visit was cancelled in advance – 100% refund for an advance 48+ hours cancellation, 50% refund for an advance 24-48 hours cancellation, and zero (0) refund for under 24 hours.

In order for you to be allowed to visit the inmates, you must always follow the visitation rules and have your valid photo identification ready. For other questions, you may call the Securus at 800.844.6591 or the county jail at 352.491.4444.

Inmate Phone Calls & Mail: Inmates are not allowed to receive phone calls but they can make outgoing calls every day between 8 AM to 10 PM with a limited length of fifteen (15) minutes per call.

All incoming mail – except for the privileged or legal mail – must be sent in the form of a postcard only, following certain requirements with the sender’s full name and a complete return address. Sending and receiving mail can be done without limitations, however, these will go through inspection to ensure the safety and security of the staff and inmates.

Incoming mails must be sent to this address:

Department of the Jail
3333 Northeast 39th Ave.
Gainesville, Florida 32609

Inmate Funds or Care-Packages: There are various methods to send funds to an inmate’s accounts. You may use the financial kiosk placed in the jail lobby to send money through cash or Mastercard/Visa/Discover credit cards; deposit a money order in the lobby’s drop box; use the ATM machine inside the Jail Lobby; or go online to My Care Pack or Access Corrections to send money or care packages directly to inmates.

Bail Bonding: Bonds can be posted inside the jail lobby between 6 AM to 11 PM. You may follow the steps to post bonds based on its type: purges, time-serve, cash bond, or surety bond.⁵ For any concerns, you may contact the Booking Support Supervisor at 352.491.4459 any time or the Administrative Supervisor at 352.491.4479 during normal business hours.

The Department of Jail also provides medical and mental health services to inmates with the Wellpath as the contract provider.

Retrieve Arrest Photos (Mugshots) via Local Police Departments Within Alachua County Florida

Alachua County is composed of seven (7) cities and two (2) towns located in the north central part of Florida.

Most of these municipalities in the county originally don’t have their own police departments or were disbanded and are therefore provided with law enforcement services by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.

The cities with independent police departments are listed in the table below with their records request page, addresses (mailing and physical address) and contact information that you can use to request mugshots of arrested individuals through various methods including online, mail, email, fax, or in person submission.

Resources Available To View Mugshots of State & Federal Prisoners (FL)

Florida has both state and federal prisons. State prisons house felony offenders that committed criminal offenses against the state while federal prisons house inmates who committed federal crimes. These prisoners are sentenced for more than a year.

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC), with 187 facilities statewide, is responsible for the supervision of state prisoners and has several online search tools where you can find mugshots of various offenders.

The FDC has a Corrections Offender Network listing several free web applications that you may use to find corrections offenders under various custody statuses such as the inmates in custody, released or to be released inmates, escapees, supervised population, absconder/fugitives, and a database with all offenders combined.⁷

You may search one of these databases by entering one or more of these fields: last name, first name and DC number. You may also check the “search aliases” option, “do not show photos on the offender list pages”, “show only offenders that have photos”, and the maximum number of matches in every page, if necessary as a filter.

The list will show each matching individual’s mugshot, name, assigned Department of Corrections (DC) number, race, sex, release date, current facility, and birth date.

To view more information of a specific inmate, you may click the mugshot which will lead you to a page with details such as the individual’s confinement status, visitation status, and a Vinelink which will show the custody status update of an offender.

Federal prisoners are under the supervision of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The BOP agency keeps the record of inmates incarcerated in the federal prison institutions (eight of which are located in Florida state) starting from 1982.

The federal offenders’ information is available in the BOP’s inmate locator which will help you find the status of the person you are looking for.⁸ You may browse the search tool by entering the subject’s name or register #, which will then result to the matching profiles’ full name, register #, age, sex, race, release date, and location.

In the specific page of an individual, you will also find the instructions on how to send them mail/packages/funds, contact, or visit the inmate in the federal prison.

All of the information retrieved from an Alachua County mugshot search as well as other public records available within Florida are open to the citizens of the state as declared by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Florida Sunshine Law (Fla. Stat. sec. 119.01 et. seq.), respectively.⁹

These public records can be used in a personal or professional setting. However, the user must always maintain a responsible and ethical act and refrain from using the information taken to discriminate, harass, stalk and intimidate an individual as dictated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and applied by the Florida Commission on Human Relations for fair employment and housing opportunities.¹⁰