Free Inmate Searches. Jail Exchange has information on every Jail, Prison and Detention Center in America. Arrests, Booking Inmate Search, Visitation, Courts, Laws and Most Wanted. Free public records. Family help.
Jail Exchange is owned and operated by Johnny Ex, Inc., a corporation based in Weld, Maine. The site was founded by Elizabeth Boyle and Mark Miclette, who still work on this website, adding and updating information daily. Contact us with questions, corrections, or requests about any page on the site.
Every time a person is arrested, it's a moment of crisis for that person and for the people who care about them. Family members and friends are often left trying to navigate a system they don't understand, at the worst possible time to be learning it.
Years ago, a founder of this website was arrested on the east coast of the United States on a warrant from a court in a western state. He spent more than a month being moved through eleven different jails and detention centers before reaching his destination. His family, though capable and resourceful people, couldn't get basic information about where he was, how to call him, how to write to him, or how to visit. When they finally reached the jail holding him, they were treated as a nuisance, and what little information they could find online was outdated or wrong. That experience is why Jail Exchange exists. No family should have to fight that hard just to find out where a loved one is being held.
Most jails in the country are small, with 50 beds or fewer, and many have no public information at all for visiting or contacting an inmate. We call the facilities directly, work through the questions families actually have, and publish what we learn about each jail's visitation, phone, mail, money, commissary, and tablet policies. For most of these facilities, jailexchange.com is the only place this information is available to the public.
Beginning in 2010, Jail Exchange grew from a simple listing of jail and prison contact information into a large database now covering more than 235,000 pages: every city and county jail, every state prison, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, ICE detention, and juvenile detention at the state and county level.
Each facility page includes, where available:
● Name, physical and mailing address, phone, fax, email, and bed count
● Recent arrests, bookings, and inmate rosters
● Bail policy and the local criminal court process
● Visitation schedules and rules
● How to call, email, text, or mail an inmate
● How to send money, commissary, or rent a tablet
● Most wanted fugitives and active warrants
● Employment opportunities at the facility
In addition to the founders, our contributors include people with firsthand experience of incarceration, among them Lashonia Thompson-El, a formerly incarcerated advocate who now works with justice-impacted individuals through JustLeadershipUSA and contributes perspective on what family communication looks like from the inside. Our legal content is reviewed by an advisor who spent years running a criminal defense practice and handling high-profile state and federal cases in New York.
We verify facility information by phone, calling both the jails themselves and the third-party services (phone, mail, and tablet providers) they contract with, rather than relying on what a facility's own website says. Facility pages are reviewed on a rolling basis as we're notified of or discover changes. If you find something on the site that's out of date or wrong, let us know and we'll correct it.
Jail Exchange is an independent, privately owned website. We are not a government agency, and we are not affiliated with any jail, prison, sheriff's office, or law enforcement agency. We don't provide legal advice, and nothing on this site should be treated as a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney.
We continue to build Jail Exchange for anyone affected by the criminal justice system, whether they're related to someone incarcerated or a community member following local crime news. We don't take sides between inmates and law enforcement, and our goal is to provide free, factual information without a political agenda. We also aim to be a place where people on all sides of the corrections system, including those who work in it, can contact us if they think something should be changed.
The site carries third-party advertising, including through Google, which selects ads based on each visitor's own interests and search activity. That advertising is what funds the research and staff time behind this site.
Since a substantial number of American adults are arrested at some point in their lives according to the FBI, most people will eventually need information like this, for themselves or someone they know. We built Jail Exchange so it's there when that happens.