West Virginia Prisons | DOC | Prison Inmate Search

Clicking on any of the West 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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West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Prison and Inmate Search

West Virginia State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

West Virginia keeps prisons, jails and youth centers under one roof. Since July 1, 2018, the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) has run all three, after the old Division of Corrections absorbed the Regional Jail Authority and the Division of Juvenile Services. Counties still pay to hold people in the regional jails, but the state operates them. The DCR is part of the state Department of Homeland Security.

Corrections history here starts almost with statehood. In 1866 the Legislature authorized the West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville, a castle-like stone prison that operated until 1995. It was the scene of a two-day riot that began on New Year’s Day 1986 and left three prisoners dead. Today the old building is a tourist attraction known for its ghost tours. Its role as the state’s maximum-security prison passed to the Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Fayette County.

Size of the system

On June 30, 2025, about 5,230 people were held in DCR prisons, and hundreds more state-sentenced prisoners were waiting in regional jails for a prison bed. The regional jails held an average of about 4,900 people a day in fiscal 2025. About 626 women were in prison. The adult prisons include:

Mount Olive Correctional Complex (Mount Olive): maximum security for men
Lakin Correctional Center (West Columbia): the women’s prison, holding women at all security levels
Northern Correctional Facility (Moundsville) and Huttonsville Correctional Center (Huttonsville)
Salem, St. Marys, Pruntytown (Grafton) and Denmar (Hillsboro)
Anthony Correctional Center (Neola): for young adult offenders
Stevens Correctional Center (Welch): formerly county-run, now taken over by the state
Minimum-security and work-release centers in Beckley, Charleston, Parkersburg and Wheeling

The ten regional jails, which replaced 55 county jails starting in 1989, include Southern (Beaver), South Central (Charleston), Western (Barboursville), North Central (Greenwood) and Eastern (Martinsburg).

From the jail to a prison bed

Most people sentenced to prison in West Virginia wait first in a regional jail, sometimes for months, because prisons are full. Men then go through intake and classification at the Martinsburg Correctional Center, a 120-bed unit attached to the Eastern Regional Jail. Women are processed at Lakin, which has its own intake and diagnostic unit.

Search for an inmate

The DCR has two separate lookups. The prison Offender Search covers people serving state prison sentences, and the jail Offender Search covers the regional jails. Both search by name (at least the first three letters of the first and last name) or by Offender ID (OID) number. If the prison search comes up empty, the person is no longer in DCR prison custody, so try the jail search too.

Staffing emergency

Short staffing has been the system’s biggest problem. Then-Gov. Jim Justice declared a staffing emergency in 2022 and sent National Guard members to work inside prisons and jails. The emergency lasted into 2024. Raises and hiring bonuses followed, and the DCR trained more than 1,000 new employees from January 2024 to fall 2025. Even so, Commissioner David Kelly told lawmakers in September 2025 that the agency still had more than 410 vacancies. On the building side, a replacement project at Anthony Correctional Center was set to finish in 2026.

Death penalty

West Virginia abolished capital punishment in 1965. After statehood it executed 112 people, mostly by hanging and later in the electric chair at Moundsville. The last was Elmer Bruner, executed April 3, 1959, for a robbery-murder in Huntington. Lawmakers have filed bills to bring the death penalty back, most recently in 2026 for certain crimes against children, but none has passed.

West Virginia juvenile facilities

Unlike most states, where counties run youth detention, West Virginia’s DCR runs both juvenile detention and longer-term commitment. Its Bureau of Juvenile Services (a separate Division of Juvenile Services from 1997 until the 2018 merger) operates ten juvenile centers, averaging about 294 youth a day in fiscal 2025:

Robert L. Shell Juvenile Center (Barboursville): diagnostic and intake
Kenneth “Honey” Rubenstein Juvenile Center (Davis): the largest, with 84 beds
Donald R. Kuhn Juvenile Center (Julian) and Sam Perdue Juvenile Center (Princeton)
Gene Spadaro (Mount Hope), J.M. “Chick” Buckbee (Augusta), Lorrie Yeager Jr. (Parkersburg), Ronald C. Mulholland (Wheeling), James H. “Tiger” Morton (Dunbar) and Vicki V. Douglas (Martinsburg)

The bureau also runs 21 youth reporting centers, day programs that help keep teens out of locked facilities. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact the DCR’s juvenile services office or the facility directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation or Bureau of Juvenile Services, choose a facility from the list below.