Clicking on any of the Missouri Counties or Cities below will direct you to a list of all the City Jails, County Jails and Juvenile Detention Centers in that specific County.
Missouri has 114 counties, and the City of St. Louis sits outside them. The sheriff runs the jail in the counties. St. Louis City runs its own corrections division. Jackson, St. Louis County, Greene, and St. Charles have the big buildings. A rural county often has one jail, and if that jail is full the person goes to a neighbor. City police departments have holding rooms. They are not county jails.
Jails in Missouri are where someone waits on a court date, and where a misdemeanor sentence gets served. A year or less stays with the sheriff. A longer felony sentence goes to the Department of Corrections. A federal sentence goes to the Bureau of Prisons. MCFP Springfield is the federal medical center in the state.
On June 30, 2025, the department held 24,454 people, 22,342 men and 2,112 women. The average age was 42. The men’s prisons include Jefferson City, Potosi, Farmington, Crossroads in Cameron, Eastern Reception in Bonne Terre, and South Central in Licking. Women go to Chillicothe or to the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia. Intake runs through Fulton and the two reception centers. These are state prisons, not extra county jails.
Count sheriffs, not buildings. Each county has a sheriff responsible for adult detention, and a few large counties run more than one unit. When a jail holds someone for another county, for the state, or for the U.S. Marshals, it bills a daily rate. That rate is local. There is no statewide fee.
Two different systems get mixed together here. Counties and judicial circuits run the detention centers that hold a youth before a hearing. Jackson, St. Louis, and Greene keep their own. Smaller counties share a circuit detention center, and the cost is split by population. A youth in one of those buildings is usually waiting on court.
The Division of Youth Services is the commitment side. It runs treatment facilities for youth the court has placed in state custody. Those are not the county detention centers, and they are not a single count of 16 lockups. Search the county of the arrest. The listing shows the detention center that circuit uses, and a DYS facility only if the youth has been committed.
Booking is a line: identity, prints, a medical screen, a search, property bagged, one phone call. The person has not been convicted. The pod still runs on counts. Food is plain, the uniform does not fit, and the first night is noisy. Withdrawal from alcohol, opioids, or methamphetamine can start before the bond hearing.
Deputies who apply the rules the same way to everyone run a quieter floor. Uneven rules are how contraband moves. Jackson and St. Louis can separate by risk. A small Ozarks jail often cannot, and a full jail there means a ride to the next county.
Most Missouri jails sell tablet time, video visits, and deposits through a vendor. Those accounts can be shut off. Each county page on this site lists the jail phone, the vendor, and the way to send money for that sheriff’s office.