Lakin Release Destinations
Lakin Correctional Center and Jail is a WVDCR institution in West Columbia. The official Lakin facility page describes it as West Virginia’s only all-female prison and as a jail and correctional facility. It houses custody levels from minimum through maximum. Its Mason County address does not make Mason County the custodian of records for every woman held there. A woman sentenced from any West Virginia county may be confined at Lakin.
A final departure can occur through parole, statutory mandatory supervision, discharge at the end of the calculated sentence, or court and medical action when authorized. Parole is physical release from prison under executive supervision. Mandatory supervision also places the person outside the institution under defined controls. Neither is the same as the sentence ending. A move to another WVDCR site remains a transfer within custody, even when Lakin no longer appears as the current location.
Confirm a Lakin Release
The correct online lead for a sentenced Lakin prisoner is the WVDCR Prison Offender Search, not the regional-jail search. Search by legal name and use the offender-number fields offered by the live form. Compare identity, photograph, institution, status, sentence information, and each labeled date. WVDCR warns that search data may not reflect the true current location, release date, or status, so a public result is a starting record rather than the last word.
Follow these checks in order:
- Open the prison search and try the full legal name, variants, and an offender number when known.
- Copy the displayed status and date labels exactly. Do not rename a parole eligibility date as a release date.
- Check West Virginia VINE for a reported custody event and agency, then compare it with WVDCR.
- Request the institutional time sheet and release entry from WVDCR Records when the public result is unclear.
- For parole, verify the Board action and the actual DCR gate event separately.
A Parole Eligibility Date, or PED, marks when parole consideration may begin. It does not promise release. A Minimum Discharge Date, or MDD, is the calculated date when DCR custody is expected to end if parole, lost good time, sentence changes, escape time, or other events do not alter it. A released result should be recorded with its precise status, actual release date if shown, last institution, and supervision indicator.
Note: WVDCR’s jail search fits pretrial regional custody; the prison search fits a sentenced Lakin prisoner.
Lakin Release Record Fields
A public prison result may retain historical identity, sentence, location, parole, or release information after the person leaves. The live portal’s wording controls. A stable public field dictionary was not found, so no date should be promised merely because it often appears in other systems. When a field is absent or ambiguous, ask DCR Records for the underlying time sheet, sentence calculation, and release or transfer entry.
| Term | What it establishes |
|---|---|
| Parole Eligibility Date | Eligibility for consideration, not a grant or gate date. |
| Minimum Discharge Date | A calculated DCR date subject to lawful changes. |
| Actual release event | The recorded departure from physical custody and its method. |
| Institution or status | The portal’s reported location or condition, which may lag. |
West Virginia’s good-time law allows one day of credit for each day physically incarcerated for eligible adults, including credited presentence jail days. It has exclusions and permits forfeiture or restoration. It is not a universal rule that every person serves a fixed percentage. Extra program credit, new court orders, additional sentences, jail-credit findings, mandatory supervision, and escape time can all change how an earlier estimate should be read.
Lakin Release Records Contact
The institution can route facility questions, while DCR Records handles sentence-computation and time-sheet issues. A phone call may not yield private offender details. It can still confirm the correct office and current process before a written request is sent.
Lakin Correctional Center and Jail
11264 Ohio River Road
West Columbia, WV 25287
Phone: 304-674-2440
Fax: 304-674-6199
For a records request, identify the person, offender number if known, Lakin as the institution, and a narrow date range. Ask for the segregable public part of the release or transfer record and the time-sheet field needed to understand the date. WVDCR Policy 142.00 reports paper pages at fifteen cents each plus actual estimated postage. West Virginia FOIA permits redaction or withholding where another law or a listed exemption protects the material.
Lakin Parole and Discharge
Parole, mandatory supervision, and discharge must remain distinct. A parole grant is a Board decision, but the physical release must still be recorded by DCR. Regional-jail parole grants can require transfer for intake and fingerprinting before release, which illustrates why an approval date and a gate date may differ. A person on parole is outside prison but still supervised. Discharge is the later endpoint shown by the responsible record.
- Parole
- Conditional physical release under WVDCR Parole Services.
- Mandatory supervision
- A statutory period outside the institution with monitoring or parole-like controls.
- Transfer
- Movement between institutions or agencies while custody continues.
- Discharge
- The sentence or supervision endpoint established by the official record.
The West Virginia Parole Board hearing material shows scheduled institutional activity, not a complete historical decision index and not proof of physical release. For a person supervised in Mason County, the Huntington Parole Office is the Western District Region 1 route. Court probation is different and belongs to the sentencing court and its probation office.
Lakin Release Geography
Mason County’s facility map reverses a common assumption. The regional jail serving Mason is Western Regional Jail in Cabell County. Lakin, a statewide women’s prison, is physically in Mason County. That means proximity alone cannot select the right offender search. Custody type must come first.
A Mason County pretrial detainee at Western belongs in the jail search. A sentenced state prisoner at Lakin belongs in the prison search. If a Western result disappears after a state commitment, check the prison system before describing a release. If Lakin disappears as the prison location, examine the reported status and receiving facility before deciding whether the person entered the community.
The prison search photo, when populated, is also not necessarily the same artifact as the original arresting agency’s booking photograph. Request the desired image by name. A picture can help confirm identity, but it does not prove current custody, release, or the outcome of a criminal case.
Note: Lakin’s Mason County location identifies the institution, not the county of every prisoner’s sentence or record custodian.
Lakin Facility Release Context
WVDCR describes Lakin as six miles north of Point Pleasant on West Virginia Route 62, with a stated capacity of 543. Capacity describes the institution, not the number of people currently held or released. It must not be treated as a live population figure. The prison’s all-female statewide role is the more useful clue because it explains why a person from outside Mason County may have a Mason County facility address.
Official sources did not establish a public release hour, pickup point, or family waiting rule. Facility-specific contact should be checked before travel. Do not infer a gate time from visitation hours. When confirmation matters, rely on the recorded release event and supervision reporting terms, not an estimate based on the sentence alone.
A full custody-type check is available through Mason County’s released-inmate lookup and record process. It helps when the searcher does not yet know whether the person left Lakin, transferred within DCR, or moved under another authority.
Release planning should also account for the difference between an estimated date and the final institutional event. A time sheet can change after lost or restored good time, a corrected commitment order, another sentence, or a new credit decision. A parole approval can carry conditions that must be met before departure. Mandatory supervision begins outside the prison but still carries reporting terms. For that reason, relatives should not treat a PED, MDD, calendar listing, or expected date as a confirmed pickup time. The actual WVDCR release entry and current institution instructions control the physical event.
State records can answer separate parts of the question. The sentencing order establishes the term imposed. The time sheet shows DCR’s calculation. The Parole Board record explains a parole action. The prison release entry records departure, and Parole Services handles later supervision. Keeping those layers separate makes a Lakin release traceable even when the public search shows only a portion of the record.