City & County Jails in New Mexico
New Mexico - Inmate Search - All County Jail Rosters
Clicking on any of the New Mexico 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.
Search for any jail in New Mexico
New Mexico county jails and state prisons
New Mexico has 33 counties. The sheriff or a county detention department runs the jail. Bernalillo County’s Metropolitan Detention Center, on the west side of Albuquerque, is the one most families are looking for. On June 18, 2026, it held 1,715 people, 1,408 men and 307 women. Doña Ana, Santa Fe, and San Juan are the other large jails. A county on the Colorado line may have a small jail or book into a neighbor. City police departments have holding rooms. They are not county jails.
Jails in New Mexico hold people before trial and people serving a short sentence. A year or less stays in the county. A felony sentence goes to the Corrections Department. A federal sentence goes to the Bureau of Prisons. FCI La Tuna sits on the Texas line at Anthony.
The state runs eight prisons, rated together for 5,757 beds, and contracts one private prison of 607. On June 30, 2025, the confined count was 5,672, about 25 percent below the high in fiscal 2016. The Penitentiary of New Mexico is in Santa Fe. Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility is in Las Cruces. Western New Mexico is in Grants. Central New Mexico is in Los Lunas. Women are held in the western and Springer units, not in a separate campus the size of the men’s prisons. The buildings average close to 45 years old.
How many county jails are there in New Mexico?
Most of the 33 counties operate a jail. A few contract. When a jail holds someone for another county, for the state, or for the U.S. Marshals, it bills a daily rate. Bernalillo accounts for a large share of the beds and a large share of the people later sent to state prison. A family in Catron or Harding can be driving half a day.
How many juvenile detention centers are there in New Mexico?
County detention has gotten smaller. A decade ago the state had about 12 juvenile detention centers. By 2026 it had four. Bernalillo’s Youth Services Center is a 78-bed building, mostly for youth waiting on a hearing. About 20 percent of the youth booked there come from other counties. Bookings were up 65 percent from fiscal 2022. The county figures the cost at about $570 a day.
A commitment is a different placement. The Children, Youth and Families Department runs two juvenile corrections facilities, not four. The Youth Diagnostic and Development Center, in Albuquerque, takes boys and girls for up to a year, up to two years, or to age 21, and it is the intake point for every commitment. The John Paul Taylor Center is in Las Cruces. Search the county of the arrest. The listing shows the detention center that county uses, and a state facility only if the youth has been committed.
What the first days in a New Mexico county jail are like
At the Metropolitan Detention Center the first hours are a booking floor, not a cell with a window. Identity, prints, a medical screen, a search, clothes bagged, one call if the phones are working. The person has not been convicted. The unit still runs on counts. There is no phone in the cell, and no way to know if a job on the West Side, a truck in a lot, or the kids are covered. Glasses stay in property until someone signs for them.
Summer is its own problem. The building holds heat. The uniform does not fit. The bunk is thin, and the next bed is awake. Meals are plain and on a clock. Mail is slow, and a visit from Grants or Las Vegas, New Mexico, is a long drive that may not happen. Withdrawal from alcohol, opioids, or methamphetamine can start before the first appearance. The detention center screens for medication-assisted treatment, and the night is still when that gets loud. Deputies who apply the rules the same way to everyone run a quieter pod. Uneven rules are how contraband moves. Bernalillo can separate by risk. A 20-bed jail in the northwest often cannot, and a full jail there means a transfer.
Tablets, video visits, and deposits take some of the isolation out of the larger jails. A message home does not fix the bed or the case, and the account can be shut off. Each county page on this site lists the jail phone, the vendor, and the way to send money for that detention center.