Search Tomoka Correctional Institution Inmates

Tomoka Correctional Institution Overview

Tomoka Correctional Institution is run by the Florida Department of Corrections, the state agency known as the FDC. It sits at 3950 Tiger Bay Road in Daytona Beach, on the west side of Volusia County. The prison holds adult male state prisoners who have been sentenced to a term in state custody. These are not pretrial detainees waiting for a first court date. They are people the courts have already sentenced, and the FDC now has charge of them. The warden is Joshua Lynn. A view of the prison and its public listing appears on the official FDC institution page further down.

The FDC uses a custody scale that runs from levels 1 through 5. In plain terms, those levels move from community and minimum custody up through medium and close custody. Close custody is the tightest supervision short of the most restrictive state level. Tomoka houses men across that range, which is why the prison runs both secure units and lower-custody work assignments. The facility also has satellite units, including the Tomoka Work Camp, where lower-custody men handle work duty under state supervision.

Tomoka Correctional Institution Capacity and Population

The numbers for this prison come from two official sources, and they do not match. The FDC facility page lists a rated capacity of 1,192 beds. The 2025 PREA audit for the prison, dated June 8, 2025, reported a designed capacity of 993, a current population of 1,457, and a 12-month average daily population of 1,421. The audit also noted a day-one count of 1,629. Both figures are official, so both are shown here with their source and date rather than blending them into one tidy number. The gap is worth knowing: by the lower audit figure, the prison was over its designed capacity at the time of the review.

The PREA audit is the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act review, a regular check of a prison's safety practices and population. It listed an age range at Tomoka of roughly 19 to 87. The point for anyone tracking the prison is simple. A single rated-capacity number does not capture how full a state prison runs on a given day, and the count can shift as men arrive, transfer, or are released.

How to Look Up an Inmate at Tomoka Correctional Institution

State prisoners are not on the Volusia county jail roster. They are found through the FDC Offender Search, the statewide locator the Florida Department of Corrections runs. The tool that matters here is the Inmate Population Information Search. The FDC search covers felony offenders sentenced to state prison or state supervision. It does not cover people held in a county jail, on county probation, or under other local supervision. That is the key split for anyone in Volusia County: pretrial and local custody lives on the county roster, while sentenced state custody lives in the FDC system.

1. Open the FDC Offender Search and choose the Inmate Population Information Search.
2. Search by last name and first name, or by DC number if you have it. A DC number is the six-character FDC identifier, either all digits or one letter followed by five digits.
3. Confirm from the result that the person is held at Tomoka Correctional Institution and not at another state prison.
4. Open the profile to read the offense, the sentence, and the projected release date.

The search returns name, DC number, current facility, race, sex, age, a photo, and release status. The FDC warns that location, status, and release dates can change fast. Inmate population data is fully refreshed once a week, while release dates and location changes update nightly. If someone you expect to find is not yet in the system, they may still be in the county jail pending sentencing, in which case they stay on the Volusia county roster instead.

Tomoka Correctional Institution Address and Contact

Calls about a man held at the prison go through the main institution line. The chaplain's office handles family emergency messages and faith-based requests. Mail and the FDC offender search remain the better routes for routine custody questions, since front-desk staff cannot give out much by phone.

Visiting Someone at Tomoka Correctional Institution

State prison visits work very differently from a quick county jail visit. The FDC requires an approved application before anyone can visit. A visitor age 12 or older must fill out form DC6-111A and send it to the prison's classification department, the unit that manages an inmate's custody file. Processing runs about 30 days, so families should apply well ahead of the day they hope to visit. If the inmate is still in reception, the early stage where a new arrival is screened and assigned, the application waits until a permanent facility is set.

Once approved, visits must be scheduled each week. The FDC scheduling window opens Monday at 5:00 a.m. and closes Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. for that week's visits. There are no walk-up visits without a scheduled slot. The Tomoka visiting hours run from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The table below sums up the process and the visiting window.

Approval is based on the visitor's background and the inmate's standing, so a slot is never a sure thing until the application clears. Confirm the inmate is still at Tomoka before you travel, since transfers happen and the visit list is tied to the current facility.

Mail and Money at Tomoka Correctional Institution

Mail and money for a Tomoka inmate follow the statewide FDC rules, not a county vendor. Money is the part families most often get wrong. Since May 1, 2024, the FDC money provider has been Correct Pay. You can send funds online or by phone, and the live phone line runs around the clock. Mailed money orders, cashier's checks, and certified bank drafts must be made payable to Correct Pay and sent with a deposit slip to the central FDC deposit address in Bradenton. Sending money to the prison's street address does not work for deposits.

The FDC funds page lists the same rules for the prison and its work camp. A valid ID copy must go with a mailed deposit. Because the bank fee and the ten-day window apply, plan deposits ahead rather than at the last minute.

Reception and Classification at Tomoka Correctional Institution

A state prison does not book people off the street the way a county jail does. Men arrive at Tomoka after a court has sentenced them and the FDC has taken custody. Once sentenced, inmates transfer from the Volusia County jail, where the booking and pretrial steps are handled on the jail inmate records side, to FDC custody such as Tomoka Correctional Institution. The handoff happens after the sentence, not at the moment of arrest.

New arrivals go through reception first. Reception is the screening stage where the state checks medical and mental-health needs, reviews the sentence, and gathers the information needed to place the person. Classification follows. Classification is the FDC's process of setting a custody level, from community up through close, and assigning housing that matches the person's risk, history, and program needs. Because classification drives where a man is held, the visiting application waits until the FDC names a permanent facility. The Volusia County inmate population overview explains how local custody and state custody fit together across the county.

About Tomoka Correctional Institution

The FDC lists a wide slate of programs at Tomoka aimed at education, job skills, and reentry. The following is a sample of what the institution offers its incarcerated population.

The lead-in photo and the program list both come from the official FDC institution page. Here is the FDC Tomoka Correctional Institution page, which carries the facility's address, capacity, visiting hours, warden, satellite units, and programs.

That official listing is the source for the program detail below, and it is the same page that confirms the prison's capacity and visiting window.

• Academic study: Adult Basic Education and GED preparation, plus the Stetson University Community Education Project.
• Vocational training: Landscape and Turf Management and Masonry.
• Self-improvement: 7 Habits, Veterans Program, and Operation New Hope reentry work.
• Service-dog work: New Horizons Service Dogs, where inmates help train assistance animals.
• Faith and recovery: a broad chaplaincy program with multiple services and support groups.

These programs belong to the state prison and its work camp. They are not county jail programs, so they should not be confused with the reentry offerings of the local Volusia jail. For lower-custody men, the satellite Tomoka Work Camp handles work assignments under the same FDC oversight.