FL DOC - Everglades Correctional Institution

Everglades Correctional Institution (ECI) is a Florida state prison on the western edge of Miami-Dade County, holding adult men within the Florida Department of Corrections. For families in South Florida, it is often the closest state prison to home, which makes understanding its weekend visiting schedule, the 30-day application timeline, and the statewide rules for money and mail especially useful. This guide brings those essentials together so you can stay connected without learning every rule the hard way.

About Everglades Correctional Institution

Everglades CI is a mixed-custody state prison for adult men, set at the far western reach of metropolitan Miami where the suburbs give way to the Everglades. As one of the Florida Department of Corrections' South Florida institutions, it serves families across Miami-Dade and Broward who might otherwise face a long drive to reach a loved one in a more distant part of the state. The institution runs the standard FDC programs, and its proximity to a large metropolitan area shapes both its visiting demand and the number of families it serves.

Every incarcerated person at Everglades is identified by a DC number that is required for visits, mail, and deposits, so writing it down early saves time on every later step. Because Florida transfers people between institutions as their classification changes, confirm that your person is actually held here before making plans. Our guide on how to find someone in jail or prison explains how to trace an incarcerated person through official records, and you can search their name directly on AllRecentArrests.us to see their facility and status.

Visitation process and timings

Visiting at Everglades Correctional Institution is a weekend affair: visits are held Saturdays, Sundays, and approved holidays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with visitor registration beginning around 8:15 a.m. and processing of new visitors stopping about 2:00 p.m., so arriving early matters. All visits are by appointment, and everyone 12 and older must have an approved visitor application on file before they can come — and because that application can take up to about 30 days to process, the single most important thing a new family can do is apply well ahead of when they hope to visit.

Once you are approved, you complete an inmate search to reach the visitation scheduling form, bring a valid government-issued photo ID, and may bring up to about $50 in currency for the visiting-room vending machines. Dress codes are enforced, and a wasted trip across Miami is a hard lesson, so it pays to know the rules in advance. Our complete prison visitation guide covers approval, dress codes, and what to expect at the checkpoint, and our directory of inmate visitor application forms by state points you to the right paperwork. Always confirm the current schedule with the institution before you travel.

How to send money to an inmate here

Money for a Florida inmate is deposited through JPay onto their account, which the person uses for canteen, phone time, and other approved purchases. One rule surprises many Florida families: since 2022 you generally must be on the inmate's approved visitors list before you can send them funds, with a narrow exception that a newly received inmate may receive money from anyone for up to about 60 days after reception. Electronic deposits through JPay are quickest, while a mailed money order must include Form DC2-363, the inmate's name and DC number, and a copy of the sender's valid photo ID — without the ID copy, the money is returned to you.

Timing is worth planning around, because money orders processed through JPay generally take about 10 business days after receipt, and any money order, cashier's check, or bank draft of $400 or more carries a 10-day hold before the funds become available. Our overview of how to send money to an inmate compares the deposit options and posting times, and our dedicated JPay guide walks through deposits and messaging on the platform Florida uses.

Sending mail and care packages

Florida routes routine personal mail through a central processing vendor rather than straight to the housing unit, so ordinary letters are generally addressed to the department's designated mail-processing address for scanning, while legal and privileged mail from an attorney or a court goes directly to the institution and is handled more protectively. Whatever the channel, keep letters plain, avoid stickers, glitter, cash, stamps, or anything that could be treated as contraband, and always include the inmate's full committed name and DC number. Our breakdown of how to send mail to an inmate covers the address format and the details that most often get a letter rejected.

You cannot mail a physical gift or food package straight to a Florida inmate; the accepted substitute is to fund the account so they can buy from the canteen, or to order through an approved-vendor program when one is offered. Our guide to sending a care package to an inmate explains how approved-vendor ordering works, and our explainer on how prison commissary works shows what a funded account actually buys inside.

Phone calls, staying connected, and reentry

Phone service in Florida prisons runs through Securus, and as with every prison phone system the incarcerated person places the call to you rather than the other way around, so the practical first step is to set up and fund a prepaid account tied to the number they will call. Under the FCC rate caps that took effect in 2026, per-minute rates have dropped sharply, making regular contact far more affordable than in past years. Our guide to calling an inmate explains account setup and cost control, and our Securus provider guide covers the calling, video, and messaging features Florida families use.

Whatever mix of calls, mail, and visits you settle into, consistency matters more than any single grand gesture, and steady contact is one of the most valuable things a family can offer someone inside. As a release date approaches, preparation pays off — lining up identification, housing, and income before the day arrives makes the first weeks home far less chaotic. Our reentry guide for life after prison walks through those first steps, and if you are supporting a household through an incarceration, our overview of financial help for families lists benefits and nonprofits that can ease the strain.

Health, safety, and raising concerns

If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside, the right channel is to contact the institution's staff or classification team directly rather than assuming word will reach the right person informally. Ask who handles medical or safety concerns, explain the situation clearly, and write down who you spoke with and when, because a simple record of your calls makes follow-up far easier if the problem is not resolved the first time. Keep the inmate's DC number and current facility handy whenever you call, since staff will ask for it to locate your person quickly.

Be cautious, too, about where you get information and send money. The FDC offender search and the JPay call center are the authoritative sources, and paying an unfamiliar third-party site to "locate" an inmate or forward a deposit is a common way families lose money for something the state provides directly. When a rule you read online conflicts with what the institution tells you, trust the institution, and confirm anything important by calling the facility before you act on it.

Your first steps

If someone you love is held at Everglades Correctional Institution, focus first on the essentials: confirm they are here and write down their DC number, submit the visitor application early because approval can take up to 30 days — and in Florida being an approved visitor is also what lets you send money — and set up a JPay deposit and Securus phone account so contact is possible. Then plan your weekend visit around the 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. window, and rely on the state's own free tools rather than paid third-party sites for anything that matters.

Everglades CI is in Miami, not in the Everglades

The name misleads people into planning a long drive into the interior. Everglades Correctional Institution is at 1599 S.W. 187th Avenue in Miami — on the western edge of the metropolitan area, reachable from the city rather than remote from it. It is also a separate institution from Dade Correctional Institution and from Homestead Correctional Institution, both of which are in the same part of the state.

Who runs Everglades Correctional Institution

The institution's main line is (305) 228-2000. Use it for anything urgent — a medical emergency, a safety concern, confirming whether visiting is running — and ask for the watch commander or the shift supervisor rather than leaving a message with whoever answers.

If medical care at Everglades Correctional Institution is the problem

Florida runs a health care appeal route that bypasses the institution. Under the Florida Administrative Code, the department has an inmate grievance appeal process that allows people in custody to submit health care appeals directly to Central Office staff rather than only through the prison holding them.

What makes this route worth using is who reads it: a registered nurse, who screens the appeal, the department's Health Services Director, who reviews it personally and the relevant discipline directors for medical, mental health, dental, pharmaceutical or nursing services. That is a very different audience from the officer on the wing, and it is why a written health care appeal often moves a case that weeks of phone calls have not.

Two practical points. The appeal is the incarcerated person's to file — a family member cannot submit it for them — so the useful thing you can do is make sure they know the route exists and keep a note of dates and names on the outside. And file early: these processes run on deadlines, and a complaint that skips a stage is usually returned unread rather than considered.

The review includes an examination of the person's own health care record to establish whether appropriate care was actually provided — so the complaint is checked against the file, not just against what the institution reports.

Education, training, and work at Everglades Correctional Institution

Academic programming at Everglades Correctional Institution includes an academic education programme for the open population. Enrolment is rarely immediate — most institutions run waitlists, and assignment depends on custody level, sentence length, and prior testing. If your family member wants a place, the request has to come from them through their assigned counsellor; a call from outside will not add someone to a list.

Vocational and career technical training on site includes Barbering. These carry more weight than general programming, because completion is documented and can matter at a parole or release review as evidence of work done inside.

The facility also operates prison industry work assignments: outpatient substance use treatment and prevention programming. These are paid positions, at correctional pay rates rather than market wages, and the earnings usually route into a trust account your family member can spend at the commissary. A work assignment is also the most common reason someone becomes hard to reach during the day.

Self-help and rehabilitation programs at Everglades Correctional Institution

Alongside academic and vocational classes, Everglades Correctional Institution runs self-help and peer programming including certified peer tutoring through the Inmate Education Worker programme and certified Inmate Teaching Assistant roles.

These matter more than their informality suggests. Self-help groups are usually the fastest thing to get into — often no waitlist and no testing requirement — and attendance is documented. At a parole hearing or a classification review, a consistent record of participation is one of the few things a person can build entirely on their own initiative, and it is routinely asked about.

The department developed the Inmate Education Worker programme to train incarcerated people as certified peer tutors and certified Inmate Teaching Assistants, so that qualified prisoners help other students succeed. As of 31 October 2022, 52 of the department's 59 facilities statewide had Inmate Education Workers. It is worth asking about for two reasons: the role carries a certification, and it is often available where a place in a formal class is not.

If your family member is unsure where to start, the assigned correctional counsellor is the person who can sign them up. Encourage them to ask for the sign-up sheet by program name rather than asking generally about programs, which tends to get a vaguer answer.

Getting there and staying connected from South Florida

For families in Miami-Dade and Broward, Everglades CI has the advantage of being close to home compared with prisons in the northern part of the state, but its far-western location on the edge of the Everglades still means a real drive, especially in weekend traffic. Building your Saturday or Sunday visit around the 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. window — and arriving before registration closes around 2:00 p.m. — is the difference between a visit that happens and a wasted trip. Bring your approved ID, keep to the $50 vending limit, and dress within the code.

Between visits, a steady rhythm of phone calls and letters keeps the connection alive, and for many South Florida families the mix of weekend visits and regular calls becomes the backbone of staying in each other's lives. Consistency — a call at a predictable time, a letter every week — tends to matter more to someone inside than any single long visit, and it gives them something reliable to count on.

Supporting a household through an incarceration is hard, and there is no need to carry it alone. Our overview of financial help for families of incarcerated people lists benefits and nonprofits that may ease the strain while your person is away, and keeping the person's DC number and current facility written down makes every call and deposit go faster.