Missouri Prisons | DOC | Prison Inmate Search

Clicking on any of the Missouri facilities below will direct you to an information page with Inmate Search, Visitation, Mail, Phone, Email, Most Wanted and FAQ for families and friends.

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Missouri Department of Corrections - Prisons & Inmate Search

Missouri State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

In Jefferson City, visitors can tour the stone cellblocks of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Built starting in 1836, it was the oldest prison west of the Mississippi when it finally closed in 2004 and its prisoners moved to the new Jefferson City Correctional Center nearby. Today the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) holds about 23,000 people in prison and supervises roughly 52,000 more on probation and parole. It has about 10,000 employees.

Missouri’s adult institutions

The DOC operates 19 prisons, all run by the state, rated at minimum, medium or maximum custody. Two of them hold women. It also runs transition centers in Kansas City and St. Louis for people finishing their sentences on work release.

Reception and diagnostic centers: Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center (Fulton); Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (Bonne Terre); Western Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (St. Joseph)
Women: Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (Vandalia) and Chillicothe Correctional Center (Chillicothe)
Higher-security prisons: Potosi Correctional Center (Mineral Point), Jefferson City Correctional Center, Crossroads Correctional Center (Cameron) and South Central Correctional Center (Licking)
Other prisons: Algoa (Jefferson City), Boonville, Farmington, Moberly, Missouri Eastern (Pacific), Northeast (Bowling Green), Southeast (Charleston) and Tipton Correctional Centers
Treatment centers: Ozark Correctional Center (Fordland) and Maryville Treatment Center, both focused on substance use treatment

Reception: the first stop

Missouri splits intake among several sites, so where a man goes first depends partly on where he was sentenced. Men are received at Fulton, Bonne Terre or St. Joseph, and women at Vandalia. At reception, staff complete medical, mental health and educational testing, assess treatment needs and set a custody level before transferring the person to a permanent prison. Some people stay on, since the Bonne Terre, St. Joseph and Vandalia centers also house a general population.

Searching for someone in DOC custody

Missouri’s Offender Search looks up people by first and last name, including known aliases. It covers everyone currently under DOC supervision, including people in prison and on probation or parole, and is updated daily. People who have been fully discharged are not listed. Write down the person’s DOC ID number from the results; it goes on mail and visitor forms.

Death row and executions

Missouri is one of the nation’s most active death penalty states. It has carried out 102 executions since resuming in 1989, the third most per capita, behind only Oklahoma and Texas. Another 285 people were executed between 1810 and 1965. Only eight people remained on death row in August 2026. Men are held at Potosi Correctional Center, and any women would be held at the Vandalia prison. Executions take place at the Bonne Terre prison, which replaced Potosi as the execution site in 2005. The most recent was Lance Shockley, executed in October 2025 for the 2005 murder of a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper. Lethal injection is the standard method, though state law still allows lethal gas.

Several Missouri cases drew national attention. In 1999 Gov. Mel Carnahan spared Darrell Mease the day before his execution after a personal plea from Pope John Paul II. In 2024 the state executed Marcellus Williams even though the prosecutor whose office had convicted him asked a court to overturn the conviction.

Deaths, heat and health care

A report released in November 2025 counted 844 deaths in Missouri prisons from 2018 through 2024. In May 2025 the MacArthur Justice Center sued the department over dangerous heat, especially in solitary confinement, noting that housing units at four prisons have no air conditioning. Medical care has been provided by the private contractor Centurion since 2021.

Missouri juvenile facilities

The Missouri Division of Youth Services (DYS), part of the Department of Social Services, is known nationally for the “Missouri Model.” Instead of large youth prisons, it relies on small, home-like residential programs spread around the state, so young people stay closer to their families. Missouri closed its old training school in Boonville in 1983, and the campus later became an adult prison. DYS takes custody of young people a juvenile court commits to the state. Detention before a case is decided is handled locally by the circuit courts’ juvenile offices. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact DYS or the local juvenile office directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the Missouri Department of Corrections or Division of Youth Services, choose a facility from the list below.