Should You Trust an Inmate or the Prison Locator for Dates?

Trust the locator over what the inmate tells you, at least as your starting point for getting to the truth.

State and federal inmate locator databases pull directly from official department of corrections records. The admission date in the system reflects when that person entered the custody of that correctional system, and those records are maintained by the government with no incentive to misrepresent them. They are not perfect and data entry errors do occasionally happen, but they are far more reliable than a self reported date from someone who may have reasons to present their situation differently.

There are a few legitimate explanations for a gap between what someone says and what the record shows. An admission date of 2005 with a claim of being locked up since 2013 could mean they were released at some point and returned on a new charge or a parole violation, with the 2013 date reflecting when they came back rather than their original entry. Some systems update admission dates to reflect the most recent intake while others keep the original date on file. It is worth understanding which approach that particular state uses.

It could also mean they served time in a different jurisdiction before transferring, with the 2005 date reflecting entry into that state's system under a different case.

Or it could mean they are not being entirely truthful about their history.

If the relationship matters to you, running a background check through a service like TruthFinder is the most straightforward way to get a complete picture of someone's criminal and incarceration history. The records do not have a story to tell. They just show what happened.