Three Forks Regional Jail, KY

The Three Forks Regional Jail Authority, a multi-county public body created under KRS 441.800. It serves Lee, Owsley, and Wolfe counties, and its board members are appointed by those three County Judges/Executive. Unlike a county jail run by an elected jailer, a regional jail is run by an appointed jail administrator. Kentucky has only four jails set up this way.

Yes, and the state publishes the numbers. The Kentucky Department of Corrections rates the jail for 182 beds. Its Weekly Jail Population Report for the week of August 20, 2026 recorded 270 people held there, which is 88 over the rated capacity and 148% of it.

Yes. The state's August 2026 population report counted 43 women in secure custody and 8 in non-secure custody. The jail's visitation schedule also sets aside separate days for men and women, which confirms both are held there.

The jail does not publish one. Its website has eight content pages and none of them cover inmate mail: no address format, no rules on what is allowed, no photo specifications, and no mention of whether mail is scanned by an outside company. The only address the jail publishes is its physical location at 2221 Fairgrounds Ridge Rd, Beattyville, KY 41311. Because many jails have moved personal mail to off-site scanning processors, that street address should not be assumed to work for inmate letters. Confirm it on the phone first.

This is unconfirmed, and there is a documented reason. The jail publishes nothing about phones. CorrectPay, its deposit vendor, has phone time switched off for this facility, so it can be ruled out. The Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts surveyed jail phone vendors and rates statewide in 2021 but wrote that the survey excluded the four regional jails run by an authority under KRS 441.800, and this is one of them. No state data on its phone vendor exists.

Usually not. KOOL, the Kentucky Online Offender Lookup, covers people in Department of Corrections custody or under its supervision. Three Forks appears in KOOL as a location, but only around 91 of the 270 people held in August 2026 were state-responsible. Anyone booked on county charges and awaiting trial will not be in KOOL. Use the jail's own JailTracker roster first.

The Kentucky Department of Corrections approves an unusually deep slate here for a jail this size: a Substance Abuse Program and SAP Mentor track, the Pretrial Substance Abuse Program, seven separate Moral Reconation Therapy programs including Anger Management, Parenting and Trauma, the PORTAL New Direction reentry program, and Adult Basic Education toward a GED. All the substance abuse programming is listed as male only. The state cautions that its catalog shows approved locations rather than programs currently running, so confirm availability with the jail.