Albemarle County Inmate Population Overview
Albemarle County's adult detention count is centered on the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, usually called ACRJ. The jail is in Charlottesville and serves Albemarle County, the City of Charlottesville, and Nelson County. That regional structure matters. A person arrested in Albemarle County may be booked into the same facility as a Charlottesville or Nelson County arrestee, and the jail population reports track the full service footprint as well as Albemarle-responsible activity.
The jail opened in 1974 after Albemarle and Charlottesville chose one regional facility over separate older jails. It became Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail in 1996. The jail now holds adults before trial, people serving local jail sentences, work release participants, weekend-time commitments, home electronic incarceration cases, and people in medical, intake, classification, or special-management housing. Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention is nearby, but it is a juvenile facility and is not counted as an adult Albemarle County inmate search facility.
The Albemarle County inmate population should not be read as one static list. Arrests, court bond decisions, release orders, sentencing, detainers, and transfers all move people in and out. ACRJ Records says releases cannot be processed until the jail receives actual court orders from all courts, so a court result can appear before the jail has legal authority to release the person.
The official ACRJ homepage shows the jail's inmate-information navigation, board material, renovation notices, and records links in one local source.
That homepage is a better starting point than a generic sheriff roster search because Albemarle County's adult custody route runs through the regional jail authority.
Albemarle County Inmate Population Statistics
The most direct capacity source is the Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails 2024 Annual Capacity Report. It lists ACRJ with 329 rated capacity and FY2024 average daily population of 250.71 for July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024. The same report lists 662 actual capacity when double-bunking is counted, with 329 permanent beds, 303 temporary beds, and 33 special-purpose beds.
| Measure | Figure | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| FY2024 average daily population | 250.71 | Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails 2024 Annual Capacity Report |
| Rated capacity | 329 | Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails 2024 Annual Capacity Report |
| Actual capacity with double-bunking | 662 | Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails 2024 Annual Capacity Report |
| ACRJ intakes, 2015-2024 | 35,073 | OAR/JACC ACRJ 2015-2024 Annual Report, June 2025 |
| Albemarle-responsible intakes, 2015-2024 | 14,785 | OAR/JACC Albemarle 2015-2024 Annual Report |
The OAR/JACC Criminal Justice Planner gives the local trend detail. It reports 65,611 charges booked at ACRJ during 2015 through 2024 and a 2024 service-footprint intake rate of 16.93 per 1,000 residents. Albemarle's own 2024 intake rate was lower, at 10.96 per 1,000 residents.
Albemarle County Jail Trends
The local trend is not simple crowding. ACRJ was below its rated capacity in FY2024, and the December 2024 total ADP of 259.51 was far below the December 2016 total ADP of 426.32. Yet the mix changed. The pretrial share rose from 38.75% in December 2016 to 61.25% in December 2024, while the actual pretrial ADP moved only from 165.19 to 158.97.
| Year / comparison | Figure | Local meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 ACRJ intake rate | 23.55 per 1,000 residents | Service footprint baseline |
| 2024 ACRJ intake rate | 16.93 per 1,000 residents | About 28% lower than 2015 |
| December 2016 total ADP | 426.32 | Higher total jail population |
| December 2024 total ADP | 259.51 | Lower total jail population |
| December 2024 pretrial ADP | 158.97 | 61.25% of total ADP |
Booking volume also fell. OAR/JACC reports ACRJ intakes down 24% from 2015 through 2024, while Albemarle-responsible intakes fell 25%. Albemarle-responsible bed days expended were at the lowest point in the decade, with 2024 bed days 13% lower than 2023. Short stays remain common: in 2024, 80% of Albemarle pre-sentenced bond or pretrial-services releases had a length of stay of three days or less.
Who Makes Up Albemarle Inmate Custody
The ACRJ reports provide more demographic and charge detail than many local jail sources. They show that intakes fell for both Black and White inmates from 2015 through 2024, with Black inmate intakes down 27% and White inmate intakes down 23%. Female intakes fell 20%, male intakes fell 25%, and the youngest adult intake group, ages 18 through 24, fell 56%.
- Age mix: In 2024, ACRJ intakes were 13% age 18-24, 13% age 25-29, 32% age 30-39, 23% age 40-49, and 19% age 50 or older.
- Common Albemarle charges: DWI, assault, and larceny made up 51% of Albemarle 2024 booking categories.
- Other high-volume charges: Contempt, probation violations, obstruction or intoxicated in public, weapons, narcotics, license offenses, and fraud also appear in the Albemarle top ten.
- Returns to custody: ACRJ's recidivism analysis counted a 25.19% return-to-custody rate within one-, two-, and three-year windows.
Those figures describe intake and release patterns, not guilt. A booking is an intake event. A charge is an accusation or case category. A conviction is a later court outcome. That distinction is central when using jail population data for Albemarle County records work.
Albemarle County Jail Capacity
ACRJ's reported FY2024 ADP was below its rated capacity of 329, and far below the 662 actual capacity count that includes double-bunking. The current local concern shown in the research is less about a single overcrowding number and more about the age of the facility, the regional service model, program space, medical and mental-health needs, and the changing share of people held before trial.
The ACRJ renovation project page says renovation work is meant to address physical facilities, capacity, physical and mental well-being, gender equality, alternatives to 24/7 incarceration, home electronic incarceration, and reentry programming. The jail also publishes board packets and meeting material, with ACRJ Authority governance involving Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and Nelson County representatives.
The ACRJ homepage is also the source for local board meeting and renovation notices. The facility has a dedicated renovation email for construction or renovation questions, acrjcomments@acrj.org.
Laws for Albemarle Inmate Records
Virginia law shapes what may be requested, what a jail must maintain, and where some records must be sought. ACRJ is a regional jail authority facility, so local jail standards and regional authority rules matter along with Virginia FOIA. Adult booking photos and nonjuvenile arrest and charge-status information are addressed in Virginia's law-enforcement records statute, while jail standards and oversight come through Title 53.1 and the Virginia Administrative Code.
Key Statutes:
Virginia Code § 2.2-3704 covers public-record request procedure, agency response, and allowable charges.
Virginia Code § 2.2-3706 covers law-enforcement records, including adult arrestee photographs and nonjuvenile arrest or charge status, subject to limits.
Virginia Code § 53.1-68 requires minimum standards for local correctional facilities and lockups.
Virginia Code § 53.1-95.2 authorizes regional jail authorities, which is relevant to ACRJ.
Search the Albemarle County Inmate Population
ACRJ does not publish a conventional static county jail roster in the official source set reviewed. Its "Inmate Locator" route points to Virginia VINE person search, and the ACRJ Records page also points readers to VINE for inmate status. Use VINE first for current custody status and notification. Use ACRJ Records when VINE does not answer a local jail-record question.
- Open the Virginia VINE person-search route and choose Virginia if prompted.
- Search with the person's legal name, using spelling variants when needed.
- If the person is not found, call ACRJ Records at 434-977-6981 ext. 303 during records hours or call the main jail line.
- For court dates, charges, and case status, search the Virginia court case portals rather than relying on custody status alone.
- For a sentence longer than local jail time or a state-responsible case, use the VADOC locator.
For local jail sentences of 12 months or less with no detainers or pending charges elsewhere, ACRJ Records can answer time-calculation and release-date questions. ACRJ directs longer state-sentenced matters to the Virginia Department of Corrections.
Albemarle County Roster Search Fields
Because VINE is JavaScript-based, the exact public field labels were not fully visible in the research crawler. The official ACRJ source still makes VINE the local inmate-status channel. Treat it as a custody-status and notification tool, not as a detailed Albemarle County booking-profile gallery.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| State | Dropdown or route | Yes | Use Virginia. ACRJ links to the Virginia person-search route. |
| Person search / name | Text | Likely yes | Use legal spelling and known name variants. |
| Notification registration | Account/contact fields | Optional after locating record | VINE supports custody-status notification registration. |
| Search / submit | Button | Yes | Exact label was not captured from the JS-rendered interface. |
The ACRJ Records Department prepares, maintains, and oversees inmate criminal records and reports. It also makes clear what it does not provide: warrants, dispositions, sentencing orders, criminal histories, federal release dates, and VADOC legal update sheets for state-sentenced matters.
Albemarle Inmate Record Details
An Albemarle County inmate record is best understood by channel. VINE is the custody-status route. ACRJ Records handles local jail records and release calculations within its limits. Virginia courts show charges and court dates. VADOC, BOP, and ICE each cover a separate custody system.
| Record field | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| Custody status | Virginia VINE and ACRJ Records. |
| Jail sentence release calculation | ACRJ Records for jail sentences of 12 months or less with no detainers or pending charges elsewhere. |
| Bond amount | Inmates request current bond amounts from ACRJ Records; court records may also show bond events. |
| Court date | Inmate request to ACRJ Records or Virginia court case search. |
| Jail credit | ACRJ keeps past and current jail-credit records for three years. |
| Mugshot / booking photo | No static ACRJ gallery was found; use Virginia FOIA and law-enforcement records procedure. |
Albemarle Jail vs State Prison
County jail custody and state prison custody are separate. ACRJ holds adult pretrial and local-sentence inmates for Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and Nelson County. VADOC covers sentenced state prisoners, probationers and parolees, people in VADOC institutions, some people housed in local or regional jails under DOC authority, and CCAP participants.
| Custody type | Where to search | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Local pretrial or short jail sentence | Virginia VINE and ACRJ Records | Current custody and local jail-record questions. |
| State-sentenced custody | VADOC Inmate and Supervisee Locator | State custody or supervision records, updated daily but not guaranteed current. |
| Federal prison custody | BOP Inmate Locator | Federal inmates from 1982 to present. |
| Immigration detention | ICE Online Detainee Locator System | ICE detainees by A-Number or biographical data. |
Albemarle County Detention Facility
The adult facility map for this project has one mapped detention facility. No adult VADOC prison, Federal Bureau of Prisons institution, or ICE detention center was located inside Albemarle County in the official facility lists reviewed.
- Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail - regional adult jail for Albemarle County, Charlottesville, and Nelson County, with pretrial custody, local sentences, work release, home electronic incarceration, and medical or special-management housing.
For facility rules, visitation, mail, deposits, and program details, use the facility page and the official ACRJ pages. For charges filed after booking, use Virginia courts and the Commonwealth's Attorney context.
Albemarle County Inmate Population FAQ
How large is the Albemarle County inmate population?
The FY2024 average daily population for ACRJ was 250.71, according to the Virginia Board of Local and Regional Jails 2024 Annual Capacity Report. December 2024 total ADP in the OAR/JACC ACRJ report was 259.51.
Why is there no simple Albemarle County jail roster?
ACRJ is a regional jail authority facility, and the official source set reviewed did not include a static ACRJ roster. ACRJ points inmate-status searches to Virginia VINE, then routes detailed local records questions to ACRJ Records.
Can a court release order lag behind jail release?
Yes. ACRJ Records states that the jail cannot process release until it receives actual court orders directly from all courts. That may take several days when more than one court or case is involved.
Where do sentenced state prisoners appear?
State-responsible inmates are searched through the VADOC Inmate and Supervisee Locator, not the local jail status route. ACRJ Records directs one-year-or-more sentenced matters to VADOC.