Inmate Search

West Virginia Inmate and Arrest Records SearchIf you want to find out if someone you know is in jail in West Virginia, you can do so in various ways. We will be discussing some of these ways in this article. There are several reasons why you could want to ascertain if someone you know is in jail. Maybe, you had someone in your family that you were aware would commit petty crimes often. Maybe this person has fallen out of touch with your family, their incarceration could be a possible reason for this distancing. Similarly, you might have a friend who you knew was serving jail time. You could want to enquire about the current whereabouts of this person. If you want to send them a letter or pay them a visit, you’d have to know their location first.

If you happen to be in West Virginia, you could use the official website of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation to find an inmate. Similarly, you could avail third party sources available online.


First, you will need to know whether they are in a state prison or in a county jail. Usually, if a person is incarcerated in a county jail, it means they are serving a light sentence for a misdemeanor or petty crime. However, if they are being housed in state prison, it is likely that they have committed a serious criminal offense and are serving a lengthy sentence. A county jail often also houses individuals who are still in the process of trial and haven’t received their final sentence yet.

How to Find if Someone is in Jail in West Virginia?

In order to find an individual who you believe may be incarcerated by the West Virginia Department of Corrections, you can visit WVDCR’s official website. They provide an Offender Search service which you can use to look up the inmate familiar to you. Unlike most other State Department of Correction prison inmate search services, the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation allows you to search inmates in jails, prisons, escapees and absconders, as well as via a daily incarceration page.

In the Daily Incarceration page, you can look up inmates using the county of their residence. The county jail search engine can be utilized by providing the inmate’s name. The prison inmate search system requires either the prisoner’s name to be provided or his/her Offender ID. The escapees and absconders page lists all escapees and absconders from West Virginia’s prison system with their name, offender ID and photograph.


Using Third-Party Sites

If you are unable to access the official website for the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, you can avail of the many prison inmate search resources made available on the Internet. Some of these online services that will allow you to find an inmate in any West Virginia prison facility are as follows –

• https://writeaprisoner.com/prisoner-inmate-locator/west-virginia-inmate-locator-search
• https://www.wvarj.org/156/Inmate-Name-Search
• http://www.theinmatelocator.com/West_Virginia_Inmate_Search.html
• http://www.prisonpro.com/content/west-virginia-prisons-jails

If you have lost touch with an inmate close to you or would like to verify the incarceration status of a friend or family member, you can avail of the services discussed above. Once you have located their whereabouts, you can take measures to get in touch with them to reestablish your connect back. You could send them a mail or even schedule a prison visit where you could go or meet them.

West Virginia allows you to track both jail and prison inmates, which makes it extremely convenient for friends and family members of those incarcerated by the prison system in the state. Other states usually only provide information for state prison inmates and keep their county jail inmate information confidential from the public.

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