Getting Approved to Visit Someone at Sampson County Detention Center: The 18-Person Visitor List and Open Enrollment
Before you can visit someone at Sampson County Detention Center, you'll need to submit a visitor application and get approved by facility staff. Here's the catch: each person in custody can only have 18 approved visitors total—adults and minors combined. That means families often need to coordinate who applies. Once all 18 slots are filled, the list is locked until the next open enrollment window, which rolls around every six months based on the person's admission date.
Visiting at Sampson County Detention Center requires an approved visitor application - you can't just show up. Each person in custody is limited to 18 approved visitors total (adults and minors combined), so planning ahead as a family helps. Once the list hits 18, you can't swap people in and out on a whim. Changes have to wait for open enrollment, which happens every six months based on the person's admission date.
The process starts inside the facility. The person you want to visit gets blank visitor application forms and mails them out to the people they want on their list.
Filling out the application doesn't mean you're cleared to visit. Facility staff have to approve it first. Until that happens, you can be turned away - even if you show up on time with everything else in order.
ID Docs Required
- ✓ If you’re 16 or older: attach a copy of an approved picture ID (driver’s license or state-issued ID issued by any state Division of Motor Vehicles)
- ✓ If the visitor is under 16: attach a copy of the minor’s birth certificate
The 18-person limit is straightforward: a maximum of 18 approved visitors per person in custody, with adults and minors counted together. If someone has 14 adults and 4 kids approved, that's the full 18 - no room for anyone else.
Who doesn’t count toward the 18: Legal, law enforcement, consular officials, and certain local/state Family Services and Juvenile Court officials aren’t counted in the 18 approved visitors - but they still must register with the facility before visiting.
Open enrollment is when the person in custody can make changes to their visitor list. This matters most once they've hit the 18-person cap - at that point, no adjustments are allowed until open enrollment comes around. It happens every six months, timed to their admission date. Someone admitted in January, for example, would have open enrollment windows in July and January.
If the person you're visiting transfers to another facility within the system, their visitor list stays active. Approved visitors don't have to start over. But when someone is released or paroled, the list becomes inactive. If they're re-admitted later, the whole visitation process starts from scratch.
- Get your documents ready before you fill anything out - If you’re 16 or older, plan to attach a copy of an approved DMV-issued photo ID; for a visitor under 16, include a copy of the birth certificate.
- Have the person in custody send the blank forms to the right people - They must get the blank visitor applications from the facility and mail them out to the people they want to add.
- Coordinate the “core 18” as a family - Because the cap is 18 total visitors (adults and minors combined), decide who truly needs to be on the list now so you don’t run out of slots.
- Time any swaps around open enrollment - If the list is already at 18, plan changes for the open enrollment window, which comes every six months based on the admission date.
Reminder: You can’t visit until facility staff approve the completed application. And once the list hits 18 approved visitors, changes usually have to wait until the next open enrollment period.
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