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How to Find an Inmate in Missouri

If someone you love was just arrested or sent to prison in Missouri, the first thing you need is also the hardest to get: a straight answer about where they are. Missouri does not have one single database that lists everyone in custody. The person you are looking for could be in a county jail, a state prison, a federal facility, or immigration detention, and each of those is searched a different way. This guide walks you through all four, in the order most families need them, and tells you what to do when someone does not show up at all.

One quirk of Missouri trips up a lot of families, so it is worth saying up front. The state's two big population centers sit at opposite ends: St. Louis in the east and Kansas City in the west. And the city of St. Louis is its own separate entity from St. Louis County, with its own jail. If your person was arrested in the city, searching the county will not find them, and the other way around. This guide will point you to the right one.

Start here: figure out which system is holding them

Before you search anything, answer one question, because it tells you which tool to use.

How long ago were they taken into custody, and what happened? Someone who was arrested in the last few days is almost always in the county jail for the county where the arrest happened. They stay there through booking, first appearance, and often through their entire case if it is a local charge. People do not go to state prison when they are arrested. They go to state prison only after they have been sentenced and physically transferred into the custody of the Missouri Department of Corrections, which can take weeks after sentencing while intake processing happens at a reception center.

So the rule of thumb is simple. Recently arrested, case still pending, or a short sentence: look in the county jail. Sentenced to state prison time and transferred: look in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Federal charge: look in the federal system. Immigration hold: look in ICE custody. Most families searching for someone newly arrested waste time on the state prison site when their person is sitting in a county jail across town.

Searching the Missouri state prison system (MODOC)

The Missouri Department of Corrections, often shortened to MODOC, holds everyone serving a state prison sentence. Its public Offender Web Search lets you look up a person by name or by DOC ID number (the department's own offender identification number) and returns their current facility, custody status, and basic profile details.

To search, you generally need the person's first and last name, and the DOC ID number helps narrow it when the name is common. One useful thing about the Missouri search is that it covers active offenders under DOC supervision, which includes people in prison plus people on probation and parole, so if your person is being supervised in the community rather than locked up, they may still turn up here. It does not cover people who have fully discharged their sentences, and some records are withheld for safety or confidentiality reasons.

What the results will not tell you is anything about a county case. If your person was arrested last week and has not been sentenced and transferred, they will not be in MODOC at all. That is normal, not a dead end. It means they are still in the county system.

Searching county jails in Missouri (recently arrested)

Missouri has 114 counties plus the independent city of St. Louis, and each one runs its own jail and its own inmate roster, usually through the county sheriff's office. There is no statewide county jail search, so you have to find the roster for the specific place where the arrest happened.

If you know the county, search for that county's jail roster directly, or find the facility on InmateAid and use the search link on its page. The largest systems, where most arrests happen, are St. Louis County, Jackson County (Kansas City), St. Charles County, Greene County (Springfield), and Clay County, plus the city of St. Louis, which runs its own jail entirely separate from the surrounding county. Many post a current booking list that updates within hours, though some lag by 24 to 72 hours, and smaller rural counties may not post online at all.

To search a county roster you typically need the person's full name. A booking number, if you have it, finds the record immediately. If you are not certain which county made the arrest, the city where it happened tells you: look up which county that city sits in, then search that county's jail. For an arrest in the St. Louis area, double-check whether it happened in the city or the county, because they are searched separately.

Federal inmates in Missouri (BOP)

If the charge was federal, the person is in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons, not the state, and you search the BOP's own national inmate locator rather than any Missouri tool. It covers everyone in federal custody from 1982 to the present and searches by name or by federal register number.

Missouri's main federal facility is the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, a specialized BOP medical and psychiatric center for men that holds inmates from across the country who need serious medical or mental health care. A person arrested on a federal charge may first sit in a county jail under a federal contract, or be held by the US Marshals, before being moved to a federal facility, so if the BOP locator does not show them yet, check the county jail where the arrest happened.

ICE detainees in Missouri

If the person is being held on an immigration matter, they are in ICE custody, which is a civil detention system separate from criminal jail and prison. ICE detainees are not criminals serving sentences; they are held while their immigration cases are decided. You search for them using the federal ICE Online Detainee Locator, which works by the detainee's A-Number (a nine-digit immigration identification number) or by their full name, country of birth, and date of birth.

Missouri does not run a dedicated standalone immigration prison. Instead, ICE holds people in county jails that contract with the federal government, with jails in Phelps County (Rolla), Ste. Genevieve County, Greene County, and Morgan County among those housing detainees. A detainee may appear in the ICE locator, on a county roster, or both. If you have the A-Number, use it, because name searches in the immigration system are far less reliable when names are common or were recorded differently than expected.

When you cannot find them anywhere

If you have searched and your person is not turning up, work through these explanations before assuming the worst.

The booking is not complete yet. Newly arrested people can take hours to appear on a roster, and newly sentenced people can sit in a county jail for weeks before showing up in the state system. Try again later. They were released, transferred, or moved between systems. Someone can post bond, get transferred to another county, or be handed from county to federal or immigration custody, and during the handoff they may briefly appear nowhere. The name does not match the record. People are booked under legal names, middle names, maiden names, or misspellings. Try variations, and search with less information rather than more. They are a minor. Juveniles are not listed in public adult locators at all, regardless of facility. You are searching the wrong St. Louis. Check both the city and the county.

When the online tools fail, calling works. Call the jail or facility you believe is holding them, give the full name and date of birth, and ask the booking desk or records office to confirm custody status. That is often faster than any website.

Get notified automatically: VINELink

Rather than checking rosters over and over, you can register with VINE, the free victim and family notification service Missouri participates in. It lets you look up a person's custody status and sign up for automatic alerts about changes such as transfer or release. Note that the system uses the DOC ID number to register for state-inmate alerts, so it helps to have that number handy. It is the simplest way to stop refreshing a website every day.

Once you have found them

Finding the person is the first step. Staying connected is the next, and it matters more than most families realize for how someone gets through their time.

The best place to start is mail. Letters and photos reach almost everyone in custody, they are the most reliable form of contact, and a person who hears from home regularly does easier time. Phone calls are the next layer. Missouri prison calls are paid, billed by the minute through the state's phone vendor, and historically the state has had some of the lower per-minute rates in the country. County jails set their own rates separately, and some run much higher. The federal rate caps that took effect in April 2026 set ceilings on what facilities can charge, which helps most at the county level. You can also send money to most facilities so your person can cover phone time, commissary, and basic needs.

To set any of this up for the specific facility holding your loved one, find that facility on InmateAid and follow the instructions on its page, since the rules, the phone carrier, and the mailing address are different at every facility.

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See every prison, jail, and detention center in Missouri: /prisons/missouri

Understand the new 2026 call rates: link to FCC Prison Phone Rate Caps 2026 guide

Search arrest records across Missouri: Arrest Record Search (honestly labeled affiliate)