Nationwide Inmate Search Guide

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Looking to establish contact with long last loved one? Or maybe you’re looking to find whereabouts of someone who was recently jailed.

I know what you may be going through now. I was in a similar situation a couple of years back when my son was jailed for a white-collar crime. I had a difficult time locating my son for the first few weeks as county officers were not able to provide the right information.

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll be sharing step by instructions on how you can carry out the nationwide inmate search. The process would require a series of steps and I will try to keep the guide as simple as possible for your understanding.

Nationwide Inmate Locator

The first step is to determine or guess what type of crime the person committed. Was it a state crime or federal. Generally, robbery, petty theft, assault are considered as state crime. However serious crimes like battery, assault, robbery,drugs etc are considered federal crimes.

In most of the cases, the inmate would end up either in state prison or county prison. Federal crimes are far more serious, and hence the chances of someone being there is less compared to state prisons.

Federal Prison Inmate Search

To search for someone in federal prison, you should head over to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and carry out the search. Here is the link. The BOP lets you carry out the search nationwide across all the federal prisons.

State Prison Inmate Search

But in contrast, state prisons maintain a local database and its not possible to search through all the state prisons at once. So you would need to know (or guess) where the person may have committed the crime or state in which he was last incarcerated.

The next step would be to head over to the state prison website and carry out the search. Below we have created a table of all the state prison search pages.

StateInmate Search Page Link
Alabama http://www.doc.state.al.us/InmateSearch.aspx
Alaska https://vinelink.com/
Arizona https://corrections.az.gov/public-resources/inmate-datasearch/using-inmate-datasearch
Arkansas https://apps.ark.org/inmate_info/index.php
California http://inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov/
Colorado http://www.doc.state.co.us/oss/
Connecticut http://www.ctinmateinfo.state.ct.us/
Delaware http://doc.delaware.gov/offenderLocate.shtml
Florida http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/search.asp
Georgia http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/OffenderQuery/jsp/OffQryForm.jsp
Hawaii https://vinelink.com/
Idaho http://www.accessidaho.org/public/corr/offender/search.html
Illinois https://www2.illinois.gov/idoc/Offender/Pages/InmateSearch.aspx
Indiana http://www.in.gov/apps/indcorrection/ofs/ofs
Iowa http://www.doc.state.ia.us/OffenderInfo.asp
Kansas http://www.dc.state.ks.us/kasper
Kentucky http://kool.corrections.ky.gov/
Louisiana http://www.doc.la.gov/quicklinks/offender-info/offender-locator/
Maine https://www.maine.gov/online/mdoc/search-and-deposit/
Maryland http://www.dpscs.state.md.us/inmate/
Massachusetts http://www.mass.gov/eopss/agencies/doc/locate-an-offender.html
Michigan https://www.michigan.gov/corrections/0,1607,7-119-1409—,00.html
Minnesota http://coms.doc.state.mn.us/PublicViewer/Home/Index
Mississippi http://www.mdoc.state.ms.us/InmateTest.asp
Missouri https://web.mo.gov/doc/offSearchWeb/
Montana https://app.mt.gov/conweb/
Nebraska http://dcs-inmatesearch.ne.gov/Corrections/COR_input.html
Nevada http://www.doc.nv.gov/inmatesearch/form.php
New Hampshire https://www4.egov.nh.gov/Inmate_Locator/
New Jersey https://www20.state.nj.us/DOC_Inmate/inmatefinder?i=I
New Mexico http://search.cd.nm.gov/
New York http://nysdoccslookup.doccs.ny.gov/
North Carolina http://www.doc.state.nc.us/offenders/
North Dakota http://www.nd.gov/docr/offenderlkup/index.asp
Ohio http://www.drc.ohio.gov/OffenderSearch/search.aspx
Oklahoma https://okoffender.doc.ok.gov/
Oregon http://docpub.state.or.us/OOS/intro.jsf
Pennsylvania http://www.cor.pa.gov/Inmates/Pages/Inmate-Locator.aspx#.WUHWNBPyvxs
Rhode Island http://www.doc.ri.gov/inmate_search/index.php
South Dakota https://doc.sd.gov/adult/lookup/
Tennessee https://apps.tn.gov/foil/
Texas http://offender.tdcj.state.tx.us/OffenderSearch/index.jsp
Utah https://corrections.utah.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=813&Itemid=107
Vermont http://www.doc.state.vt.us/offender-locator/
Virginia https://vadoc.virginia.gov/offenders/locator/
Washington http://www.doc.wa.gov/information/inmate-search/
Washingtonhttps://doc.dc.gov/page/locate-inmate
West Virginia http://www.wvdoc.com/wvdoc/OffenderSearch/tabid/117/Default.aspx
Wisconsin http://offender.doc.state.wi.us/lop/
Wyoming http://wdoc-loc.wyo.gov/

Each state has pretty much the same process to search. You need to feed in the name of the person, and other details like age, race, sex etc. The search would run through the database and show you the matching records.

County or Police Jail Inmate Search

If you were unable to locate the inmate either in federal prison or state prison, this mostly means the person is in county jail or police jail. Inmates who’re serving less than one year jail time are sent to county jails. While police jails act as a temporary holding facility until the court gives the verdict.

To search for inmates in county jail, your best bet is Vinelink.com. Most of the county jails are part of vine system and are obligated to update the inmate records.

Paid Inmate Search Service

If by any chance you’re still not able to locate the inmate whereabouts, it’s probably best to engage a private inmate search service to do that for you. The service usually charge under $50 but in most cases will find the inmate information. The process takes about one to two days.

Conclusion

I hope you found this guide helpful. If you need any help finding any inmate information, you can drop the name, age and last known location in comment section below. I will personally try to search for the inmate.