This guide will explain the process of finding inmates from federal locations across the United States. Our federal inmate locator guide will break down the process of finding the correct prison system in your state and how to find inmates from an online search from a department of corrections website.
The federal prison system is controlled and operated by the jurisdiction of the federal government. unlike state prisons that are, you guessed it controlled by the state. If someone violates federal law they are put into a federal prison. Inmates are that considered to be dangerous or those inmates that are facing long prison terms are usually inside a federal prison.
BOP Federal Inmate search
The Federal Bureau of Prisons or BOP is responsible for passing The Prisons Act that took place in 1981. The BOP is a resource for those looking for a federal inmate locator tool online. the BOP is responsible for many things. Within the federal prison system, they are responsible for the custody and well being of inmates within a federal system, the administration of federal prisons systems, and provide background information and stats about the Federal Prison System.
Here is how to start off a BOP federal inmate locator search using the BOP website.
- Access the website here
The most common way to search would be that of a first and last name.
The records from the BOP contain data from inmates released after 1982. If your looking for information on inmates before 1982 you may have to search for records for a different system. Not all inmate data was inputed into the BOP system prior to 1982 and because of this a lot of these records may be found by the National Archives Website. You can read more here.
Inmate Search from the DOC
To start an inmate search it will help if you know what state the inmate is being held at. This will allow us to find the department of corrections for that state to locate the federal inmate easier.
Here is an example of how to find the department of corrections online quickly by just using Google.
Use this search string, and just change the state to the state your looking for.
“Florida + Department of Corrections”
Just change the state to the stat your looking for to find the DOC for your state. All Department of Corrections has a way to search for inmates. Simply find the inmate search from the website and search by a first and last name, or a unique inmate number if they allow that. Most do.
Find inmate data from third-party search services
The use of a search service can help anyone find public record data. In fact, it is a very quick way to search for federal, state, and county data by a first and last name. Using this service someone can find criminal records, warrants, court documents, inmate data, and more with a single name search. This is a great tool to combine with other online methods mentioned above help locate federal inmate records. This method will also let you find important court case information on an inmate.
Visiting a federal inmate
There are certain steps that must be followed in order to visit a federal inmate. Certain forms have to be filled out. By law, federal inmates get at least 4 hours a month for visitation. Do keep in mind that state and local correctional systems may have there set of rules for visitation.
To learn more about visiting a federal inmate start your search here.
Sending money to a federal inmate
You can also send money to a federal inmate. if the inmate is at a BOP facility then you can use this link to learn more. Funds are processed and received 7 days a week and depending on when funds are deposited they are typically received within 2-4 hours.
When using any of the above federal inmate locator methods keep in mind that inmate data changes quickly there are times that a result is either not updated or in the process of being
