Montgomery County Jail Inmate Lookup

Montgomery County Jail Overview

The Montgomery County Jail sits at 140 N. Main St. in Hillsboro, one block north of the Historic Courthouse. It is operated by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, the largest law-enforcement agency in the county. Sheriff Tyson Holshouser is the administrator of the jail, and Chris Watson is named as jail administrator. The facility holds people arrested in Montgomery County, pretrial detainees, short county sentences, and people held for court transport or pending transfer when the sheriff accepts them.

The county does not publish housing units, a pod layout, or a security-level breakdown for the jail. The clearest published size figure is the bed count. Once a person is sentenced to state prison, custody passes to the Illinois Department of Corrections, and the lookup moves to the state locator described on the jail inmate records page. The jail is a county facility for local, pre-sentence custody, not a state prison.

Montgomery County Jail Capacity and Beds

The Illinois Sheriffs' Association profile is the strongest source for the jail's size, listing 42 jail beds. A Prison Policy Initiative table recorded a local jail population of 32 on December 31, 2013, useful as historical context but not a current reading. No county dashboard for average daily population or annual bookings was located, so the current head count is not published in official public sources.

The lead-in below shows the Illinois Sheriffs' Association Montgomery County profile, which lists the bed count and local driving directions.

That profile also gives the county population near 31,000 and the route from I-55 through Litchfield to the jail on the Hillsboro square.

How to Look Up an Inmate at the Montgomery County Jail

There is no online roster for the Montgomery County Jail, so the lookup runs by phone. The jail information line is the most reliable way to confirm custody, and a records request covers anything that is not given over the phone. Have the full name and date of birth ready before you call.

1. Call jail information at (217) 532-9514 to ask whether the person is in custody, released, or transferred.
2. If they were arrested recently, ask the arresting agency whether the person is still in intake or transport.
3. File a FOIA request with the county FOIA Officer for a booking sheet or arrest report.
4. If the person was sentenced, search the state IDOC locator instead of calling the jail.

Note: Because no booking appears on a public website here, the jail information line is the best same-day way to confirm whether someone is held at this facility.

Montgomery County Jail Address and Contact

The jail shares its building with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. The jail information line is the number to use for custody questions, while the sheriff main line and the county FOIA route handle other requests. The card below lists the core contacts.

For booking or arrest records, the county routes FOIA requests through the Montgomery County FOIA Officer at the State's Attorney's office, 120 N. Main St., Hillsboro, IL 62049, phone (217) 532-9551. When you call the jail line, it helps to have the person's full name, date of birth, the arrest date, and the arresting agency ready, and to ask plainly whether the person is in custody, released, transferred, or not booked there. If staff cannot release a detail by phone, that is the point to switch to a written request.

Visiting Someone at the Montgomery County Jail

The county publishes one weekly visiting window 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, so they should be confirmed by phone before a trip. The table reflects only the published window.

A law-enforcement note on the sheriff page describes a sally port on the north side of the jail and an intercom on the west entrance for staff. That is intake access for officers, not a visitor entrance, but it helps locate the secure side of the building.

Mail, Phone, and Money at the Montgomery County Jail

The sheriff page says friends and family can add funds for video and voice calls by downloading the InmateSales app on Apple iOS or Android. The county did not publish a full mail policy, a commissary vendor, or a deposit limit, so the details below should be confirmed by phone before sending anything. Treat the street address as a facility address until staff confirm the required inmate name and identifier format for mail.

Booking and Intake at the Montgomery County Jail

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, builds a booking record, inventories property, and follows local search and classification steps. The county does not publish its booking field set online, so a written FOIA request is the route to a copy of a booking sheet or arrest report.

Release now follows Illinois pretrial law. Since September 18, 2023, the state no longer uses cash bail, and courts weigh release conditions or detention instead. A person can stay in custody on a detention order, a warrant, or a hold from another agency. Court events route through the 4th Judicial Circuit and the Montgomery County Courthouse, a short walk south at 120 N. Main St. The jail, the court complex at 120 N. Main, and the Historic Courthouse on the square sit within a block of each other, so a custody case and its court file play out in the same small stretch of downtown Hillsboro.

About the Montgomery County Jail

The sheriff's office doubles as the jail operator, since the county has no separate corrections department. Published staffing includes the sheriff, undersheriff, chief deputy, and jail administrator, plus six correctional officers, twelve telecommunicators, ten patrol deputies, an office administrator, a jail chief cook, maintenance staff, and one K-9 unit. The office serves warrants, runs court security, handles civil process, and delivers detainees to court. The county itself was formed in 1821 from Bond and Madison counties and named for Richard Montgomery, a Revolutionary War general.

The sheriff also offers a public mobile app, which is for community contact rather than an inmate roster. The lead-in below shows the Apple listing for the Montgomery Co Sheriff Illinois app.

The store listing advertises reporting crimes, submitting tips, and public-safety news, and it does not promise an inmate roster, so custody questions still go to the jail information line.

The office has a long local history. The Illinois Sheriffs' Association lists elected sheriffs back to 1928, with several long runs, including Jim Vazzi across repeated terms from 1986 to 2018. Sheriff Tyson Holshouser was elected in 2024 with 16 years in law enforcement. The office is part of the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System and runs one K-9 unit. Its service area covers the county's main communities of Hillsboro, Litchfield, and Nokomis.

The sheriff's office also offers a few public services that are separate from inmate lookups. Public fingerprinting is open Thursdays from 10 to 11 a.m. for a $25 fee, though the office does not handle Illinois concealed-carry or medical-marijuana prints. That service should not be confused with jail records, which still route through the jail information line or a written request.