How to Find Someone in Prison in the USA

It's not hard to use the Internet to find a prisoner.

There are a number of ways to locate a person if he is in prison. The Federal Bureau of Prisons keeps an up-to-date and accurate database of listings of anyone presently incarcerated in prison within the United States. The website for a specific state's Department of Corrections also maintains detailed listings of everyone presently incarcerated in a state prison. By using these two simple tools, it shouldn't be too hard to quickly locate a prisoner held anywhere in the country.

Instructions

1. Determine whether or not the inmate you are searching for is being held in a federal prison or a state prison. Federal prisons are overseen by the U.S. government and tend to be larger facilities holding more serious and repeat offenders. State prisons are operated and maintained by the government of a particular state.

2. Use the Bureau of Prison's online "Inmate Locator" (http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/LocateInmate.jsp) to find a federal prisoner. This website is essentially a federally run "Google for Prisoners," allowing you to search every federal institution by an inmate's first name, last name, race, sex, age and identification number. Search results will include the inmate's exact location, date of admittance and expected date of release as well as type of crime he committed.

3. Find an inmate incarcerated by a particular state by going to the website of that state's Department of Corrections, which offers a searchable database of every state prison that is currently operational.

   For example, the Ohio Department of Corrections has a website at http://www.drc.ohio.gov/. Click on "Offender Information" to search for an inmate by name, status and the county where the inmate was sentenced.

Tips & Warnings

• Many local jails offer inmate searches as well. Go to the website of the Sheriff's department to search for a locally held inmate by name and be presented with a detailed listing of anyone who matches that criteria.

References

• Inmate Locator Main Page
• Federal Bureau of Prisons
• Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish