How to Find Out an Inmate's Prison Status

Learning the current status of an inmate can help be helpful when you are watching for potential release dates or when you're trying to locate an inmate. Prison facilities in the United States offer either an inmate locator function on their individual websites or the ability to contact the prison via phone or fax and have a person look up the inmate's current status. Some prison facilities will let you sign up on their website for an “inmate watch,” which will give you updates on the inmate status or notify you of an upcoming pending release.

Locate the inmate's ID number. Sometimes this number is also called a “CDC” number. It may include letters, dashes or may be numbers only. This will make finding the current status the fastest but is not a requirement to perform the search.

Write down the inmate's ID number. If you do not have it, write down the inmate's name, sex and birthday, if you know them. Note whether the inmate has a middle initial.

Log onto the Internet and find the website to the prison facility the inmate is in. Navigate the website until you find “Offender Information,” “Inmate Locator” or “Inmate/Offender Watch.” Fill in any applicable forms with the information you wrote down and press “Submit” or “Search.”

Call the prison facility where the inmate is and ask for the department that provides inmate status information. Provide the representative with the inmate ID number or the rest of the information you wrote down. Write down the inmate status when the representative gives it to you.