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The Inmate Search Network

Records We Search

A complete breakdown of every record category surfaced in an inmate search — sourced from county, state, and federal agencies across all 50 states.

Browse Record Types

Sources

3,200+ Facilities

County jails, state DOCs, Federal BOP, ICE detention, contract facilities.

Refresh

Every 24 Hours

Every record pulled directly from the source agency, daily.

Cost

Always Free

No account, no payment, no signup — public records, public access.

At a Glance

Five categories of records, one search

Every inmate search on our network returns information across five connected record categories. Together they form a complete picture of an arrest, the case, the holding facility, and what happens next.

  • Arrest & Booking Records — Booking is the formal process of entering a newly arrested person into a jail's intake system.
  • Charges & Legal Status — Charges describe what a person is accused of, the statute that governs the accusation, and the current procedural status of each count.
  • Court Information — Court information ties a booking to the case moving through the judicial system.
  • Facility & Location — Facility records tell you where a person is physically held right now and how to reach them.
  • Custody Status & Release — Custody status is the field that answers the question most families ask first: 'Are they still in?' It also indicates whether other agencies have holds preventing release — a small but critical piece of information when a bond has been posted and the family is wondering why the person is still being held.

Overview

The Five Record Categories

Tap any category to jump to its full explanation below — including data fields, source agencies, and how each field is populated.

Booking RecordsCharges & LegalCourt InformationFacility & LocationCustody Status
Booking Records

Arrest & Booking Records

Booking is the formal process of entering a newly arrested person into a jail's intake system. The booking record is the first official paper trail an arrest creates, and it's typically the most-searched record on our network. It's also the fastest to appear — most county facilities publish a new booking within 12 to 48 hours of intake.

The booking record is created at the moment a person is brought into a county jail or city lockup. An intake deputy fingerprints them, takes the mugshot, records identifying information from a government ID, logs personal property, and assigns a booking number. Everything entered during that process becomes part of the public booking record.

Booking numbers usually follow a year-prefixed sequence (e.g. 2026-001234) and are the most reliable way to look up a specific intake later — even if the person has a common name. Mugshot publication varies by jurisdiction; some states publish them by default, others restrict release until conviction.

Fields included

  • Full name, aliases, and known nicknames
  • Date and exact time of arrest
  • Arresting agency — city police, county sheriff, state patrol, federal agency
  • Booking date, time, and booking number
  • Mugshot / booking photo (where local rules allow publication)
  • Physical description — height, weight, DOB, identifying marks
  • Arrest location and county of intake
  • Intake property log summary (when published)
Arrest & Booking Records
Charges & Legal

Charges & Legal Status

Charges describe what a person is accused of, the statute that governs the accusation, and the current procedural status of each count. Charges can be added, dropped, or amended at any time during a case — what's on the record today may not match what's there next week.

Each charge is filed under a specific statute (e.g. ORC §2911.02 for Aggravated Robbery in Ohio). The statute code determines the severity tier — infraction, misdemeanor of varying degrees, or felony of the 1st through 5th degree depending on state. Federal charges follow U.S. Code sections (e.g. 21 U.S.C. §841 for drug-distribution offenses).

Bond is set at arraignment or by a magistrate shortly after booking. Common bond types include cash, surety (bondsman), property, personal recognizance (PR), and 'no bond' for serious felonies. Warrant status is also tracked here — active warrants, recalled warrants, and warrants served (the original cause of the current booking) are all part of the public record.

Fields included

  • All charges filed — felony, misdemeanor, infraction
  • Charge description and statute / U.S. Code reference
  • Charge severity level and degree of offense
  • Case number and docket number
  • Current legal status — pending, convicted, dismissed, acquitted
  • Bond amount and bond type (cash, surety, PR, no-bond)
  • Warrant status — active, recalled, served
  • Disposition history when a case has closed
Charges & Legal Status
Court Information

Court Information

Court information ties a booking to the case moving through the judicial system. We surface the assigned court, the next scheduled appearance, and the disposition once a case concludes — pulled from county clerk dockets and, for federal cases, PACER records.

U.S. criminal courts are organized in a hierarchy: municipal/city courts handle low-level offenses, county courts handle most misdemeanors, state district or superior courts handle felonies, and the federal district courts handle violations of U.S. law. Each system maintains its own docket, and the docket is what determines what hearing is next.

Hearing types you'll commonly see include arraignment (the first appearance, where charges are read and bond is set), preliminary hearing or grand jury date (for felonies, where probable cause is reviewed), pretrial conferences, motion hearings, trial, and sentencing. After sentencing, the record may reflect probation supervision, parole eligibility, or appeal status.

Fields included

  • Assigned court and jurisdiction
  • Next scheduled court date, time, and courtroom
  • Arraignment date and outcome
  • Sentencing date (if applicable)
  • Sentence length and type — incarceration, probation, suspended
  • Probation or parole supervision status
  • Attorney of record (where public) and public-defender assignment
  • Appeal status when filed
Court Information
Facility & Location

Facility & Location

Facility records tell you where a person is physically held right now and how to reach them. This is the most useful information for families trying to send mail, deposit commissary funds, or schedule a visitation — and it's the field most likely to change without notice when transfers happen.

There are six common facility types in the U.S. corrections system: city/municipal lockups (very short-term, often less than 72 hours), county jails (pre-trial and short sentences), state Department of Corrections prisons (post-conviction sentences over 12 months), Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities, ICE detention centers, and privately operated contract facilities under federal or state contract.

Inmate IDs are assigned by the holding agency. Counties use booking numbers; state DOCs use a DOC or DCN number; the BOP uses an 8-digit register number. The ID follows the inmate across transfers within the same system but changes when they move between systems (e.g. county → state).

Fields included

  • Current holding facility name, address, and county
  • Facility type — county jail, state prison, federal detention, ICE custody
  • Inmate ID / DOC number / BOP register number
  • Facility phone number and visitation hours
  • Facility mailing address for letters
  • Commissary deposit instructions and approved vendor
  • Visitation rules and pre-approval requirements
  • Transfer history between facilities
Facility & Location
Custody Status

Custody Status & Release

Custody status is the field that answers the question most families ask first: 'Are they still in?' It also indicates whether other agencies have holds preventing release — a small but critical piece of information when a bond has been posted and the family is wondering why the person is still being held.

Custody status changes frequently — a person can be booked, bonded out, re-arrested on a new charge, and transferred between counties in a single 48-hour window. We refresh every record from the source facility daily, so what you see is the latest custody status the agency itself published.

Release types include time served, released on recognizance (ROR), bond posted, charges dismissed, and parole. Holds — also called 'detainers' — can block release even when the underlying charge is resolved. Common holds include out-of-state warrants, ICE immigration detainers, parole-violation holds, and other-county warrants.

Fields included

  • Current custody status — in custody, released, or transferred
  • Projected and actual release dates
  • Release type — time served, ROR, bond, dismissal, parole
  • Immigration hold (ICE detainer) status
  • Out-of-state or other-county hold
  • Parole or probation violation status
  • Sex-offender registry classification
  • Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody integration
Custody Status & Release

Transparency

What's not in a search

We surface only records that are already public by law. Several categories of information are intentionally excluded — not by us, but by statute. We honor those exclusions automatically.

  • Juvenile records
    Almost all juvenile court and detention records are sealed under state law.
  • Sealed or expunged records
    When a court seals or expunges a case, it disappears from public databases — and from ours on the next refresh.
  • Medical and mental-health information
    HIPAA and state confidentiality laws prevent publication of clinical or behavioral-health records.
  • Victim and witness information
    Personal details of victims and witnesses are redacted from public booking and court records.
  • Active investigation files
    Records connected to ongoing investigations are typically withheld until charging or closure.
  • Internal facility records
    Disciplinary write-ups, classification scoring, and intra-facility communications are not public.

Refresh Cadence

How Often Each Record Updates

Update frequency depends on the source. Most agencies publish at least once per day. Major urban systems refresh on a faster cadence.

County Jail Rosters

2–24 hours

Urban counties post in near real-time; rural counties typically once per day.

State DOC Locators

Daily

State systems batch overnight; sentencing changes appear next morning.

Federal BOP

Daily

The BOP Inmate Locator refreshes overnight on weekdays.

Court Dockets

Hourly–Daily

County clerks vary; PACER (federal) is near real-time.

Sources & Legal Basis

Where Every Field Comes From

Public-records access is established by federal and state law. The sources we aggregate are required by statute to publish what we display.

County Sheriff & Jail Rosters

Each county sheriff's office publishes a current-inmate roster as required by state sunshine laws. Booking data, charges as filed, and facility holding information all originate here.

State Departments of Corrections

All 50 state DOC systems run public inmate locators with facility, sentence, and projected release. Our network queries each system on a daily cycle.

Federal Bureau of Prisons

The BOP Inmate Locator covers everyone in federal custody and remains searchable for records back to 1982. Mandated under federal sunshine and prisoner-tracking statutes.

Court Clerks & PACER

County clerk dockets and the federal PACER system supply court date, courtroom, hearing type, and disposition. These records are public under FOIA and state open-records laws.

State Sex-Offender Registries

State-maintained sex offender registries are referenced for registry classification. Federal SORNA compliance is reflected in BOP records.

ICE Online Detainee Locator

The ICE Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS) provides detainer and immigration-hold information for individuals in ICE custody.

Who Uses It

Who Searches These Records

Inmate-locator data is public for a reason — it serves families, the legal system, the press, and lawful commerce. Here's who uses our network every day.

Families

Locating a relative after an arrest, confirming a facility, scheduling visitation, and posting bond.

Attorneys

Verifying a client's current location, pulling case numbers, and tracking court schedule for client representation.

Bail bondsmen

Quick facility and bond verification before underwriting a surety bond.

Journalists

Confirming bookings and court dispositions during reporting on local public-safety stories.

Employers

Lawful background-check verification consistent with state employment law and FCRA where applicable.

Researchers

Academic study of incarceration trends, sentencing patterns, and corrections-system data at scale.

Frequently Asked Questions

When the source facility publishes the mugshot, yes — we display it. Mugshot publication rules vary by state and county. California, for example, restricts general mugshot release; Florida and Texas publish them by default. We only surface what the source agency has already made public.

Dismissed charges remain on the booking record but are marked with a 'dismissed' disposition. They do not disappear unless the case is sealed or expunged through a separate court process. Sealing or expungement removes the record from public databases entirely, and we honor those removals automatically on our next refresh.

A few reasons: the bond hasn't been set yet (arraignment hasn't happened), the person is being held without bond on a serious felony, or the source facility doesn't publish bond data in its public roster. Call the facility directly — bond information is always available to anyone who asks.

Yes. For federal cases pulled from the Federal Bureau of Prisons locator, we surface the sentencing court, sentence length, projected release date, and current BOP custody designation. Detailed sentencing memoranda are in PACER, which is referenced but not duplicated.

Court dates are refreshed at the same daily cadence as the booking record itself. Last-minute hearing reschedules occasionally lag by a few hours; if a court date is critical, confirm with the clerk's office of the assigned court.

No. Juvenile records are not part of public records databases under almost every state's law, and we do not display them. Juvenile dispositions are also sealed in most states once the person reaches the age of majority.

Contact the originating facility or court — they are the only entity that can correct an official record. We display exactly what the source publishes; we do not edit, score, or interpret the underlying data.

Yes, when the supervising agency publishes it. Probation is typically tracked in court records (post-sentencing). Parole is tracked in state DOC and federal BOP records (post-incarceration). Both fields show in the record when available.

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