Virginia Prisons | DOC | Prison Inmate Search

Clicking on any of the Virginia 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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Virginia Department of Corrections - Prisons and Inmate Search

Virginia State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) holds people serving felony sentences across the commonwealth, from the coalfields of Southwest Virginia to the Tidewater. Virginia’s first state penitentiary, known as “The Pen,” took its first prisoners in Richmond in 1800, built partly by prison labor. The building that replaced it was torn down in 1992. Today’s department was created by the General Assembly in 1944 and is part of the state’s public safety secretariat.

How big is the system?

In August 2026, VADOC held an average of about 22,900 people. It runs 37 facilities: 25 major institutions, 7 field units, 4 work centers and a secure hospital unit, the Marion Correctional Treatment Center for people with serious mental illness. Virginia once had a privately run prison, but the state took over Lawrenceville Correctional Center from GEO Group on August 1, 2024, after years of staffing complaints. Every prison in the system is now state-run.

Some of the best-known facilities:

Greensville Correctional Center (Jarratt): the largest, built for more than 3,000 men
Red Onion State Prison (Pound) and Wallens Ridge State Prison (Big Stone Gap): the high-security prisons in far Southwest Virginia
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women (Troy) and Virginia Correctional Center for Women (Goochland): the two women’s prisons
Sussex I State Prison (Waverly), Buckingham and Dillwyn (Dillwyn), Coffeewood (Mitchells), Nottoway (Burkeville), Indian Creek and St. Brides (Chesapeake), River North (Independence) and Keen Mountain (Oakwood)

Virginia has been shrinking its prison footprint. Four sites closed on July 1, 2024: Augusta Correctional Center, Sussex II State Prison, Haynesville Correctional Unit #17 and the Stafford Community Corrections Alternative Program. Older closures include James River (2011), Mecklenburg (2012) and Powhatan (2015).

Before the move to state prison

In Virginia, a person sentenced to more than a year for a felony becomes “state-responsible.” Many first spend weeks or months in a local or regional jail while they wait for VADOC to transfer them, and VADOC then decides their security level and assigns them to a prison. Visiting rules and approval are handled by VADOC once the person is in a state facility, so families should check the locator before applying.

How to find an inmate in Virginia

Search the VADOC Inmate Locator by first and last name or by DOC ID number. It also lists state-responsible people still being held in local or regional jails under VADOC’s authority, which helps during that in-between stretch after sentencing.

Virginia ended the death penalty

Few states have used capital punishment as often as Virginia. Researchers count more than 2,000 executions since colonial times, and the commonwealth carried out 113 after 1976, the fourth-highest total in the country. Then, on March 24, 2021, Gov. Ralph Northam signed a repeal, making Virginia the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. The law took effect July 1, 2021. The last two men on death row, Anthony Juniper and Thomas Porter, had their sentences changed to life without parole. The last execution was William Morva, put to death by lethal injection on July 6, 2017. Virginia had also kept the electric chair as an option for prisoners who chose it. Executions moved from the old penitentiary in Richmond to Greensville in 1991.

Virginia juvenile facilities

Young people committed by a juvenile court are the responsibility of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). After closing Beaumont and other youth prisons, DJJ now runs just one, Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center in Chesterfield County. More than 60% of the people there are 18 or older. Bon Air has been under heavy scrutiny. Fire crews answered 45 calls there in one year, a former officer was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl in 2025, and short staffing halted most programs. A December 2025 report by the state inspector general called for 61 fixes. New director Bob Bermingham, appointed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, said in May 2026 that 31 were done and the rest were due by the end of the year. Youth waiting for their cases to be decided are usually held in locally run juvenile detention centers, and some committed youth serve time in community placement programs inside those centers instead of at Bon Air. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact DJJ or the local court service unit directly.

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