The Delaware Department of Corrections, in conjunction with Vinelink, a national offender and inmate tracking service, maintains a searchable public database of all of the inmates they have in custody. They do not publicize a list of former prisoners. Once an inmate is out of prison, there is no record online of their former status as inmates.
The Delaware Department of Corrections maintains four prisons. The prison that an inmate is assigned to depends on factors such as security classification, remaining time of their sentence, gang affiliation, and location of their residence. The inmates are classifed as minimum, medium and maximum security. After being arrested, and until an offender is convicted or acquited in Delaware, they may spend time in one of the state jails or prisons.
Every convicted offender is assigned a number called an Delaware Department of Corrections Number. This number follows them for life.
If an inmate is released and then re-arrested, convicted, sentenced again, and then put back in prison in Delaware, they will be identified using the same number.
The Delaware Department of Corrections began, although less formally, in 1776.
Delaware’s correctional facilities have a general capacity of 5,000. Unsentenced individuals make up a good percentrage of the total incarcerated population. There are another 10,000 on probation or parole, and all of these are overseen by a staff of approximatyely 2,500.
The following will explain the tricks and hacks you can use to find any inmate in custody with the Delaware Department of Corrections.
Since Delaware does not have its own online inmate search, it contracts with Vinelink Inmate Search Notification System to keep track of inmates, both sentenced and unsentenced, that it has in custody. The Vinelink System is updated daily, and sometimes more often.
In order to search for an inmate, you have to know the exact spelling of their full name, first AND last. The only information you will get after looking up an inmate, is the facility in which they are being held, their age and their race.
You do not need to register an account with Vinelink, although if you are registered you will be able to get the inmate's date of birth and their full Inmate ID# in the listing, as well as get notified when the inmate is moved to another facility, or is released.
There are no city or county jails in Delaware. All offenders, while awaiting court dates for serious crimes, are held in one of Delaware's State Prisons overseen by the Delaware Department of Corrections.
After an arrest, an offender in Delaware is sometimes held in one of the state facilities until they either pay a bond or bail, which entitles them to be released upon a promise to return to court for their trial, or they are held until their trial.
If an offender is found guilty and is given a sentence of short sentence of a week or two, he or she will do their time in that same state facility.
If they are found guilty and given a longer sentence, they will be remanded to the Delaware Department of Corrections to do their time. The only exception is if their crime is a federal offense. In that case they will be tried in a federal court and if found guilty, will be remanded to a federal prison.
The Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator includes inmates that are not only in custody, but who have been in custody and have been released (or who died in custody) since 1982.
For inmates in custody prior to 1982, visit the National Archives Records Administration and provide the following information:
Searching by Name
Searching by Name Results
Searching by Number
Searching by Number Result
Things to Know About Federal Inmate Search Results
When someone that is not a US Citizen gets arrested in the United States, and they are here illegally, depending on what state or city they are arrested in, the person may be turned over to ICE.
Many states such as New York and California, as well as hundreds of US cities, have declared themselves 'sanctuary cities' and do not turn over foreigners here illegally, even if they are committing crimes in their jurisdiction.
However, when an alien here illegally is turned over to ICE, and sent to one of the over 100 Immigration Detention Centers in the United States, the only way to try and locate where they are being detained is using the Online Detainee Locator System.
You can look them up using their assigned A-Number.
You can also try and look them up by using their name.
