Clicking on any of the Allegheny County or city facilities below will direct you to an information page with Inmate Search, Visitation, Mail, Phone, Email, Court cases, Most Wanted, Recent Arrests, Bail/Bond and more.
The Allegheny County jail is the main place people are held after an arrest anywhere in the county. It is run by the county sheriff or a county corrections department, and it holds people who have just been booked, people waiting for their court dates who haven’t been released on bail, and people serving short sentences, usually a year or less. It also holds people sentenced to a Pennsylvania state prison while they wait to be transferred, and sometimes state or federal prisoners under contract. Most people in the Allegheny County jail haven’t been convicted of anything, so the population changes every day. The quickest way to check whether someone is there is the Allegheny County inmate search.
Some cities in Allegheny County have their own city jail, a small holding facility run by the city police department, often inside the police station. These are built for short stays of a few hours to a few days while a person is booked and then released on a citation or bail, or taken to court. Anyone who stays in custody longer is normally moved to the Allegheny County jail. Many smaller Pennsylvania towns no longer keep a jail and bring arrestees straight to the county. If you can’t find someone at a city jail, check the county inmate search next.
Young people under 18 who are arrested in Allegheny County are taken to a juvenile detention center instead of the adult jail. Depending on the county, this may be a county-run facility or a regional center shared with neighboring counties, usually overseen by the juvenile court or probation department. It holds youth while their case moves through juvenile court, and a judge reviews whether they need to stay, usually within a day or two. Youth are kept separate from adults and continue school, counseling and medical care. Juvenile records in Pennsylvania are confidential, so young people won’t appear in the inmate search; parents and guardians should call the detention center or the Allegheny County juvenile probation office directly. If a judge commits a young person after their case is decided, they are usually moved to a Pennsylvania state youth facility.