Chester County, Pennsylvania Inmate Search

An inmate search involves finding an individual who may be incarcerated in jail. It helps individuals verify an inmate’s custody status, determine where they are housed, and obtain other necessary details about the inmate’s stay in jail. The Chester County Prison is the primary jail facility in the county and is overseen by the Warden and the Chester County Prison Board of Inspectors. The county does not have municipal, state, or federal correctional facilities. All correctional operations are handled by the county prison.

How to Find an Inmate in Chester County Jail

To find someone in jail in Chester County, individuals must contact the Chester County Prison. Inquiries can be made by phone at (610) 344-5040 or in person at the prison. Information that may be used for a search includes the inmate’s name and their booking number or jail ID.

Alternatively, individuals can search for the inmate online using a third-party service. The service is statewide, so individuals performing a search should ensure they use the inmate’s precise name or ID number to avoid sifting through numerous results to find a specific record.

The Chester County Prison is located at

501 South Wawaset Road

West Chester, PA 19382

How to Use the Chester County Jail Roster

The Chester County jail roster is publicly accessible online on the Prison’s website. To access the roster, individuals may navigate to the Chester County official website, click "Departments" at the top, and then click "Prison." Once on the Chester County Prison’s page, individuals will find the third-party service that provides access to the jail roster under the "Links" section, just below the prison’s address.

The third-party vendor does not provide service to Chester County alone; it serves all of Pennsylvania, so researchers need to be as specific as possible in their search criteria. Before a search is made, users should make sure the state is set to Pennsylvania. Users can search the portal using the inmate’s name or Prison ID number. Individuals may also choose to perform a partial name search and have the results display mugshots of inmates, if available.

What Information is Included in the Chester County Inmate Roster

In Chester County, inmate records are generally a mix of public "Right-to-Know" information and protected private information. The Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law governs these records and other public records in the county. The law dictates which details are public information and which are not. The following details are usually considered publicly available information.

• The inmate’s identifying information, including their full name, date of birth, gender, and physical description
• Booking and arrest details, including the arrest date, arresting agency, and date and time of booking
• The specific charges involved
• The inmate’s custody status
• Housing location within the jail
• Bail information

Non-public information about an inmate includes

• Medical records
• Disciplinary records
• Victim information
• Visitation logs

Contact Details for Chester County Jail or Sheriff’s Office

Below are the contact details of the Chester County Prison for individuals who may want to make inquiries.

501 South Wawaset Road

West Chester, PA 19382

Prison Phone: (610) 344-5040

Crisis Hotline: (610) 344-5040 ext. 3225

Correctional Center Phone: (610) 344-5040

Jail Facility Overview in Chester County

Chester County Prison is the long-standing jail serving Chester County. The current facility was opened in 1959, following the previous jail in West Chester being declared unfit in the early 1950s and undergoing several renovations and expansions. One of those expansions led to the addition of a separate Pre-Release/Work Release Center in 1993, also known as the Corrections Center.

The Chester County Prison houses adult males, females, and juveniles and has a capacity of about 1,100 inmates. The 1959 construction provided 171 individual cells: 128 medium-security, 24 maximum-security, 15 for women, and 4 for juveniles, plus specialized restraint and treatment cells and small infirmaries for men and women.

However, in recent times, the county moved juvenile housing away from the adult facility and constructed the Chester County Youth Center. The youth center is focused on rehabilitation and houses juveniles receiving services from the Chester County Juvenile Probation Department, the Chester County Department of Children, Youth and Families, and the Chester County Court of Common Pleas. The detention center contains 12 female beds and 36 male beds. Youths detained at the facility are usually aged 10 to 21.

Agency	Office and Mail Address	Phone Number	Office Hours	Email
Chester County Prison	501 South Wawaset Road West Chester, PA 19382	(610) 344-5040	24 hours a day, 7 days a week	No public email address; Inquiries can be made over the phone.
Chester County Youth Center	505 South Wawaset Road West Chester, PA	(610) 344-6700	24 hours a day, 7 days a week	No public email address; Inquiries can be made by calling the center.

How to Send Money to an Inmate in Chester County Prison

Inmates at the Chester County Prison have a trust fund account opened for them at the time of detention, into which all cash they have is deposited. The inmate’s family and friends can also send money to the inmate using the account, as inmates are not allowed to receive or hold physical currency while in jail.

Individuals who want to deposit money into an inmate’s trust fund account may visit the kiosk in the lobby of Chester County Prison. A deposit may be made in cash, by credit card, or by debit card. Money orders or personal checks are not accepted at the kiosk. Alternatively, individuals can send money to an inmate online through a private vendor. Only credit and debit card deposits are allowed on the vendor’s website. Depositors should ensure the funds are deposited into the correct inmate’s trust fund.

Inmate Search by Jail Facility

The Chester County Prison and the Chester County Youth Center are the county’s two primary detention facilities. The county prison houses adult inmates and emphasizes punishment, while the youth center houses youthful offenders and emphasizes rehabilitation and public safety.

Members of the public can find an inmate in the Chester County Prison using the online jail roster provided by the third-party vendor. As explained earlier, an inmate may be located on the vendor’s portal by their name or jail ID number. Researchers may also call or visit the jail to obtain more information.

Avenues for confirming whether a juvenile is at the Chester County Youth Center are more restricted due to state law and privacy concerns. As such, there are no public online rosters where individuals can obtain information. Disclosure is usually limited to the juvenile’s parents, legal guardians, and custodians. Inquiries about a juvenile at the youth center can be made by phone at (610) 344-6700 or in person.

Chester County Visitation Rules and Schedules

The Chester County Prison permits inmates to receive visits from family and friends; however, the prison uses a scheduled in-person visiting system. The jail permits one visit per day for each inmate in a four-week cycle.

A visitor must be on an inmate’s visiting list to be allowed to visit. The list consists of a maximum of 10 names and is completed by the inmate’s counsellor. Inmates may only request changes to the list through their counsellor after a 30-day period. New inmates may not be able to receive visitors until their classification process, which takes 48 to 72 hours, is complete. Below is the jail’s visitation schedule.

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.	O-Block Max/PC	R-Block Max	C/D Medical Males	R-Block RHU/4R	Q-Block PC Even
1:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.	O-Block RHU	K-Block	M-Block	J-Block	D Medical Females
6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.	O-Block Med O-Block Min	F-Block	N-Block	H-Block	Q-Block Min Odd Center A-J: 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.	N/A	E-Block	N/A	N/A	Center K-Z: 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

After the fourth week, the schedule repeats for the next four-week cycle. Up to three visitors, including children, are permitted per visit. Any child of walking age is treated as a visitor. It is the duty of an inmate to inform potential visitors of the block they are on and the time slot. Inmates housed on R-Block Quad 3, cells 39-69, may only receive visitors with approval. Also, individuals who are actively on parole or probation or who were incarcerated within the previous year are not permitted to visit an inmate.

Visitors are expected to comply with all visitation rules (e.g., dressing appropriately and behaving properly), or their visit may be terminated. In more serious instances of violation, the individual may be barred from visiting.

Inmates at the Work Release Center are permitted only one visit per week. The visitation hours are 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Friday evenings.

Professional visitors also have a different visitation schedule. They may visit daily from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Mailing and Commissary Information

Inmate mail in Chester County is of three categories: personal mail, legal mail, and publications.

Personal mail is mail sent by the inmate’s family and friends that is not legal in nature. In Chester County, personal mail, although directed to the inmate, is not addressed directly to the jail. This is because the prison processes personal mail through a third-party mail scanning service. The private facility receives and inspects the mail for contraband. If free of contraband, the mail is then sent electronically to the prison. Individuals sending personal mail should address it correctly to ensure it is delivered to the facility and not returned.

Legal mail and publications, on the other hand, are sent directly to the jail in this format:

Chester County Prison

Inmate Full Name, Permanent ID Number

501 South Wawaset Road

West Chester, PA 19382-6776

However, inmates can only receive publications, such as books, magazines, and newspaper subscriptions, if they have received approval from the Prison Administration. The publication must be sent directly from the publisher or bookstore and must be paperback. Inmates are not allowed to have more than 10 books at any given time.

Individuals should be careful not to include contraband in mail sent to an inmate. The mail will be rejected, and it may result in the sender and the inmate being prosecuted.