Look Up Montgomery County Inmates

Montgomery County Jail Roster Overview

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office runs the county jail at 140 N. Main St. in Hillsboro. Sheriff Tyson Holshouser is the administrator of the jail, and Chris Watson is the jail administrator named on the official page. The office books and holds people arrested in the county, pretrial detainees, short county sentences, and people awaiting court transport. What it does not provide is a public web roster. The sheriff page lists a jail information line, the address, and an app, but no searchable list of current inmates.

That gap matters for who you can find here. The county jail covers pretrial and short-sentence custody. It does not track sentenced state prisoners, who move to the Illinois Department of Corrections, and it does not track federal or immigration detainees. So a Montgomery County inmate search often becomes two or three separate lookups, each in the right system. A search that starts in the wrong system is the most common reason a person seems to vanish, when in fact the record simply lives somewhere else. Booking photos and recent bookings are covered on the jail roster mugshots page.

How to Find Someone in the Montgomery County Jail

Since there is no search form, the lookup runs by phone first. The jail information line is the fastest way to confirm whether someone is in custody, released, or already transferred. Have the person's full name and date of birth ready, plus the arrest date and arresting agency if you know them.

1. Call jail information at (217) 532-9514 and ask whether the person is currently in custody.
2. If the arrest was recent and they do not appear, ask the arresting agency whether the person is still in intake or transport.
3. For a written record, file a FOIA request with the county FOIA Officer for the booking sheet or arrest report.
4. If the person was sentenced to prison, search the IDOC locator rather than the county jail line.

The county public-filings page routes FOIA requests through the Montgomery County FOIA Officer at the State's Attorney's office. You can see that routing on the official county public-filings page.

That page gives the FOIA Officer and State's Attorney address and phone, which is the channel to use when phone staff cannot release a written booking record.

Montgomery County Inmate Records Access Channels

Because no single website answers every custody question, it helps to match each goal to the right first channel. The table pulls the access-channel sweep together so you start in the correct place instead of guessing.

Searching Sentenced Montgomery County Inmates

When a Montgomery County case ends in a prison sentence, the person leaves the county jail and becomes searchable in the IDOC system. The state locator accepts three search methods and one text box. It is the closest thing to a real inmate search box for anyone connected to the county, and it covers Graham, the state prison in Hillsboro. The lead-in below comes from the legacy IDOC Individual in Custody Search form.

The form shows the radio options, the single text field, and the Find button described in the table below.

Note: The locator can go offline for maintenance, and IDOC then takes custody questions from the public by phone at 217-558-2200.

What a Montgomery County Inmate Profile Shows

The county jail does not publish an online profile, so there is no public field list of charges, bond, or housing unit from the sheriff. For a sentenced person, the IDOC profile is detailed and public. The fields below describe a typical state prison record, which is what most online "inmate profile" results for the county actually return once a case reaches prison.

For a county booking record, an Illinois FOIA request can reach arrest-report details such as charges, the time and place of arrest, the arresting agency, and a booking photograph when one is available under the statute.

Finding County, State, and Federal Inmates

Custody level decides the locator. Pretrial and short-sentence inmates are a county jail matter, reached by phone and FOIA here. Sentenced felons move to the state IDOC locator. Federal prisoners and immigration detainees use separate national systems. The table keeps the four tracks apart so a search lands in the right place.

For ongoing custody alerts on any of these, register through the VINELink Illinois person search. The lead-in below shows the VINELink Illinois portal.

VINELink handles notification and status tracking, and it is separate from filing a records request for documents.

Montgomery County Jail Facilities

Two kinds of facility serve Montgomery County custody. The local jail under the sheriff handles arrests and pretrial holds. Graham Correctional Center, a state prison in Hillsboro, holds sentenced adult men under IDOC. The contact cards below give the address and phone for each, and the facility pages carry full visitation and lookup detail.

Booking Process in Montgomery County

After an arrest in the county, a person is taken to the Montgomery County Jail or held briefly by the arresting agency until transfer. Intake confirms identity, checks for warrants and holds, creates a booking record, inventories property, and follows local search and classification steps. The booking record may include the arrest charge, the arresting agency, the time and place of arrest, fingerprints, and photographs. The county does not post that field set online, so a FOIA request is the route to a written copy.

Illinois changed how release works after booking. As of September 18, 2023, the state no longer uses the old cash bail system. Courts now weigh pretrial release conditions or detention, and prosecutors may seek detention in eligible cases. A person can stay in custody on a detention order, a warrant, or a hold from another agency even when the local charge might otherwise allow release. Court events route through the 4th Judicial Circuit and the Montgomery County Courthouse.

Note: A booking does not always appear quickly anywhere online, so the jail information line remains the most reliable same-day confirmation in this county.

Montgomery County Jail Visitation Hours

The county publishes a single weekly visiting window for the jail, and little else about visitor rules. The sheriff page lists jail visiting hours as Tuesdays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. ID, dress, child-visitor, and approval rules were not posted in the official source, so they should be confirmed by phone before a trip. The table reflects only what the county published.

How to Contact a Montgomery County Inmate

For calls and video, the sheriff page says friends and family can add funds to an account by downloading the InmateSales app on Apple iOS or Android. That funding covers video and voice calls, not a confirmed commissary program. The county did not publish a full mail policy, a commissary vendor, or a deposit limit, so the jail street address should be treated only as a facility address until staff confirm the required inmate name and identifier format for mail. Calling jail information first prevents a misaddressed letter or a wasted deposit. The same call is the place to confirm whether visits remain limited to the published Tuesday afternoon window and what ID or approval the facility expects.

Requesting Montgomery County Inmate Records

When phone staff cannot release a detail, a written FOIA request is the path to a record. Send it to the Montgomery County FOIA Officer at the State's Attorney's office, 120 N. Main St., Hillsboro, IL 62049, phone (217) 532-9551. Name the exact records you want, such as a booking sheet, arrest report, booking photograph, or release record, and cite the Illinois arrest-report law where it applies. Charges filed in court belong to the Circuit Clerk and Judici, covered on the court records after a jail arrest page.

One reason searches stall here is sending a request to the wrong office. Each kind of question has a home, and matching them up saves days.

• Current jail custody goes to jail information or the sheriff.
• A formal charge docket goes to the Circuit Clerk or Judici.
• A charging decision goes to the State's Attorney.
• A sentenced prisoner's profile goes to IDOC.
• Federal or immigration custody goes to BOP or ICE.