It's a new place where you have moved on or planning to move on but you are unsure about the security. You are concerned and want to know about the people in the surroundings. You want to know if someone living in a place has a criminal background or not. Maybe there are sex offenders in that area and you are not aware.
The best way to find out is to check the jail rosters of the particular town or county. Jail rosters have a list of all those people who are currently in custody for any of their criminal activities
There are a few options available for you if you are looking for someone or your dear ones in jail. Finding an inmate can be a difficult task for you if you don't know where to begin. You should have some basic knowledge before you start searching every jail in your area on Google.
Do you have the personal details of the one you are looking for? For example name, date of birth or address, etc.
Maybe you only know that where the crime happened or from which state or city the person belongs. If you want to make the search simple and easy then getting enough personal details to help you a lot in the whole process.
First of all, we should work on finding out if somebody is in jail at the moment. While the best thing we can do is to find out which federal prison or jail they're currently in. So let's start:
There can be many reasons behind your search for someone who is in jail. Many times, some people are looking for someone who was arrested before and they just want to know their present state like if they are still in prison or not.
Sometimes, when people move into a new town, they want to do some research on offenders of sexual crimes in that area. And sometimes, people are looking for their dear ones or relatives about whom they have not heard long ago.
Whatever the case is, knowing about someone is in jail or not, always begins with knowing what crime the person did or what crime made him enter into the prison.
Even if you do not have enough personal information like the name or age, you can still lessen down your search if you know which circle of authority to rely on.
You can begin with the State Department of corrections if you want to find someone in jail.
You would find a phone number to contact if you open the state's website. You will find information about Sex Offenders, their contact information, and Offender Visitation forms.
Often states will also show a feature for search. Some websites of different states will show this search feature as an "Inmate Search" or an "Offender Database Search."
If you are confused and don't know where to look for this feature, then Google the state followed by "department of corrections inmate search."
You can easily get that feature among the top in the search results.
You may have to try a phone call in some of the counties that do not have an online search feature. If you have called in another jail where an inmate is not located then try to call nearby jails.
If the person was recently arrested for whom you are looking for, then maybe his information may not be updated in the system.
Every week or in a couple of weeks you can check. As the prisoners are kept in the county jail until they have their trial so it is harder to find their information on these sites. From county jail, they are either released or transferred to a permanent location.
If the person you are looking for is held in jail for more than a month, then with the help of other resources you can find their location easily.
Once you are sure that someone is in jail, you can easily begin your search. You can contact the jail through a phone call if you are aware of the jurisdiction where they are held as an arrestee and their information is mentioned in the jail roster.
You can ask the department of corrections to release public information to you about the criminal. For example, their age, name, and gender, etc. You can also try some other options through which you can get this information if you don't have enough details or information about the prisoner.
You can get the most authentic information through VINELink (Victim Information and Notification every day.)
You just need to select the state you are looking for, on the homepage of the website. You have to type the Offender Id number in the "Find and Offender" button. If you don't know the ID number then you can type the inmate's first and last name.
You can add the inmate's date of birth, name, and age in "Advance Search."
VINLink can provide you information about the inmate's name, date of birth, gender, ID number, race, location custody status, and the released date too if you are successfully finding who you are looking for. You can also get yourself registered on the website so they can send you a notification through e-mail or phone call about the inmate's status.
This website is the most updated one but cannot provide information for the inmates who are in federal prisons. You can only find inmates of state prisons and the local jail.
Looking for an inmate is not much different from looking for someone in county jail. There is a website that works as an inmate locator that is www.bop.gov.
Here you will see the inmate locator tab where you can start your search with the inmate's number or name.
A jail roster (list of people that are held in custody) appears with their information like their name, gender, race, age, ID number, and even their release date and location. Upon selecting the prison's name. You will see the location's website. All the additional details of the prisoner can be seen here easily.
Some jails' information and details cannot be seen on this website. In such a case, you can simply contact them to get the details of jail rosters of that particular prison or jail.
As the release date of an inmate can be changed at any time so even after being aware of all the details mentioned in the jail roster you should contact the state's Department of Corrections, or you should search them through online resources.
Sometimes inmate's date is released on local news stations if the inmate's case is under the public's eye but if the inmate is not covered by any news station and is held in a smaller facility, then you cannot find out their released date online. Then you have to contact the inmate state's department correction.