New Mexico Prisons | DOC | Prison Inmate Search

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New Mexico Corrections Department - Prisons & Inmate Search

New Mexico State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

The New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) holds adults sentenced to more than a year in prison and supervises people on probation and parole across the state. Its story is tied to the Penitentiary of New Mexico near Santa Fe, which began in territorial days in 1885 and moved to its present site south of the city in 1956. That prison is also where one of the darkest events in American corrections took place: during the riot of February 2–3, 1980, prisoners held 12 officers hostage and killed 33 fellow prisoners in about 36 hours. The aftermath reshaped the department, which adopted a modern classification system modeled on the federal Bureau of Prisons.

A smaller, mostly state-run system

New Mexico’s prison population averaged about 5,600 in fiscal year 2025, down more than 23% since 2019. For decades the state relied heavily on private prisons, but it has steadily brought them back under state control. The last big step came on May 2, 2025, when NMCD announced it would move the roughly 1,000 people held at the GEO Group’s Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs into state prisons by June 30, 2025, ending a partnership that began in 1998. The state had declined GEO’s offer to sell the prison for as much as $240 million. Today NMCD runs eight prisons itself:

Central New Mexico Correctional Facility, Los Lunas (men’s reception, medical and mental health)
Penitentiary of New Mexico, Santa Fe
Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility, Las Cruces
Western New Mexico Correctional Facility, Grants (includes the women’s prison)
Northeast New Mexico Correctional Facility, Clayton
Guadalupe County Correctional Facility, Santa Rosa
Roswell Correctional Center, Hagerman
Springer Correctional Center, Springer (the former New Mexico Boys School, opened in 1909)

NMCD also contracts for some specialized treatment beds at the privately run Otero County Prison Facility in Chaparral. Staffing remains the system’s biggest challenge: at the end of 2024, about 27% of officer jobs in state-run prisons and 37% in private ones were vacant, and a quarter of all department positions were unfilled.

Where do new prisoners go first?

Newly sentenced men begin at the Reception and Diagnostic Center (RDC) at Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas, south of Albuquerque. Women go through a separate RDC unit at the women’s prison in Grants. The department’s family guidebook says people usually spend their first six to eight weeks in RDC, separated from the general population, while staff complete assessments and decide on a permanent placement. Call the facility or NMCD’s Family and Constituent Services office before planning a visit during this period.

Searching for someone in NMCD

NMCD’s Offender Search finds people by name or NMCD number. Write that number on every piece of mail, along with the person’s full legal name. Without internet access, you can call Family and Constituent Services for help.

Capital punishment in New Mexico

New Mexico no longer has the death penalty. Gov. Bill Richardson signed a repeal in 2009, but it applied only to future crimes, leaving two men, Timothy Allen and Robert Fry, under death sentences. In 2019 the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled their sentences disproportionate and changed both to life in prison, emptying death row. The state carried out only one execution after 1976: Terry Clark, put to death by lethal injection on November 6, 2001, at the Penitentiary of New Mexico.

New Mexico juvenile facilities

Youth committed by a children’s court go to Juvenile Justice Services, part of the Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD). The state operates two secure youth facilities:

Youth Development and Diagnostic Center (YDDC), Albuquerque: 108 beds for boys and girls up to age 21. It also houses the Central Intake Unit and a 15-day diagnostic unit where committed youth are assessed.
John Paul Taylor Center, Las Cruces: 48 beds for boys

CYFD also runs smaller reintegration centers that help young people transition home. Youth waiting for court are typically held in county-run juvenile detention centers rather than state facilities. Since juvenile records are confidential, families need to contact CYFD for information about a young person in its care.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the New Mexico Corrections Department or Children, Youth and Families Department, choose a facility from the list below.