Washington Prisons | DOC | Prison Inmate Search

Clicking on any of the Washington 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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Washington Department of Corrections - Prisons & Inmate Search

Washington State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

Washington’s oldest prison, the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, has held prisoners since territorial days in 1887. It is still in use, and locals still call it “the Walls.” For most of the 20th century, prisons were run by a state social services agency. That changed on July 1, 1981, when the Legislature created the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) as its own department to run adult prisons, work release and community supervision.

The DOC holds people sentenced to more than a year for a felony. In fiscal year 2026, its prisons held an average of about 12,800 people, about 700 of them women. Hundreds more were finishing their sentences in reentry centers (work release) in communities around the state.

Washington’s ten prisons

Washington State Penitentiary (Walla Walla): the oldest, holding men at every custody level from minimum to maximum
Monroe Correctional Complex (Monroe): the largest by capacity, with several separate units
Coyote Ridge Corrections Center (Connell) and Airway Heights Corrections Center (near Spokane)
Stafford Creek Corrections Center (Aberdeen) and Clallam Bay Corrections Center (Clallam Bay)
Washington Corrections Center (Shelton): the men’s intake prison
Washington Corrections Center for Women (Gig Harbor): now the only women’s prison
Cedar Creek Corrections Center (Littlerock) and Olympic Corrections Center (Forks): smaller minimum-security camps

Closures and budget cuts

Washington has closed a string of prisons as its population fell. McNeil Island, a former federal penitentiary in Puget Sound that the state ran for three decades, shut in 2011. Larch Corrections Center near Yacolt closed in 2023. The 2025 state budget closed Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Belfair and moved its women to a new unit at Gig Harbor. It also shut the Peninsula and Tri-Cities reentry centers on October 1, 2025.

Where do new prisoners go first?

Every man sentenced to a Washington prison starts at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, which opened in 1964. There, staff classify him and assign him to a permanent prison. Women go through intake at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor. Once someone reaches their assigned prison, families can apply to visit through DOC.

Looking someone up

DOC’s Incarcerated Search lets you search by first and last name or by DOC number. You’ll be asked to accept a short disclaimer first. The information is updated regularly, but people move often, so call the facility before you make a long drive.

The end of capital punishment

Washington and the territories before it carried out 110 executions starting in 1849, five of them after 1976. One of those, Westley Allan Dodd’s 1993 execution at Walla Walla, was the first legal hanging in the U.S. in nearly three decades. Prisoners could choose hanging over lethal injection. The last execution was Cal Coburn Brown, by lethal injection on September 10, 2010. Gov. Jay Inslee declared a moratorium in 2014. Then on October 11, 2018, in State v. Gregory, the Washington Supreme Court struck down the death penalty because it was applied in a racially biased way, and the eight men on death row were resentenced to life. Lawmakers removed the death penalty from state law for good in 2023.

Washington juvenile facilities

Youth committed by a juvenile court go to Juvenile Rehabilitation, a division of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), created in 2018. Since a 2023 law, young people convicted as juveniles can stay in youth custody until age 25 instead of moving to adult prison. That change, plus longer sentences, has crowded its secure facilities:

Green Hill School (Chehalis): young men ages 17 to 25, built for 180 and often holding more than 200
Echo Glen Children’s Center (Snoqualmie): younger boys and girls, plus young women up to 25
Harbor Heights: a smaller unit opened in 2025 on the grounds of an adult prison to take pressure off Green Hill

In 2024, DCYF moved dozens of young men from Green Hill to an adult prison, and a judge later ordered some returned. In 2025, an appeals court ruled that Green Hill’s crowding broke state law. A July 2026 legislative audit found that fights, assaults and contraband incidents at Green Hill quadrupled from 2022 to 2024, and that nearly half of new front-line staff leave within a year. Lawmakers have funded design work on a new facility for fewer than 50 youth, possibly in the closed Mission Creek prison, and asked for plans for another one east of the Cascades. Youth awaiting court are held in county juvenile detention centers. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact DCYF directly.

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