Free Kansas Inmate Search (Access Offender Details)

Perform a free Kansas inmate search to unveil information on anyone incarcerated in jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities statewide.

Thanks to state and federal public record laws, this information is publicly accessible once citizens know how to find it.

This brief resource outlines and links offender search tools available on local, state and federal levels and provides additional useful guidance for tracking down details of anyone incarcerated in Kansas.

Inmates in Jails & Prisons: What’s the Difference?

If someone is incarcerated, they may be held in a jail or a prison, depending on why they’re being held and where they were arrested.

Jails are operated on a county or municipal level and hold the majority of inmates. County jails hold people who were arrested by the county sheriff’s department and may also take additional prisoners arrested by police within the county.

Municipal jails operate at a more local level and primarily take inmates arrested by the local police. In contrast, state prisons are run by the Department of Corrections and hold prisoners who have committed a state crime.

Federal prisons are overseen by the Bureau of Prisons and hold inmates who have committed federal crimes.¹ In general, if someone is an inmate in Kansas and is being held for a relatively minor offense, they are probably being held in jail. Jail inmates account for the majority of prisoners, followed by state inmates. Federal inmates are the least common.

It’s useful to know what crime someone is being held for so you know where to direct your search when performing an inmate search.

How To Run Kansas Inmate Searches To Track Down Individuals Held in Jails (Free)

According to the National Institute of Corrections, there are 97 jails in Kansas.² As of 2020, there were 8,090 people in jail in the state.

Jails are typically run by county sheriff’s offices. It’s possible to find information about inmates held in these jails by using the inmate locator tools provided on their websites. For example, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office provides an Inmate Search page that is free to use and does not require registration.^{3, 4}

The search tool asks for the inmate’s first name and surname. Users can also narrow the search down to people who are currently in custody or request information about inmates booked in the last 3 years.

Results will appear as a table below the search form. Clicking “Details” on the left-hand side of one of the rows of results will show information about the inmate, including their full name, date of birth, criminal file number and details of their booking and/or release.

In Kansas, rather than having municipal jails, individuals who are arrested by municipal law enforcement officers are taken to the nearest county jail, where they’re held pending a trial. For example, if someone is arrested in Wichita, Kansas, they would be held at Sedgwick County Jail. An inmate search can help identify which jail the offender is being held in.

How To Check Whether Someone Is in a Kansas State Prison for Free

State prisons are run by the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC).⁵ Interested parties can search for information about inmates by using the Kansas Adult Supervised Population Electronic Repository (KASPER).⁶

This tool is free to use and allows users to perform an inmate search, providing information about adult inmates who are associated with programs that are funded or operated by the Department of Corrections. The system does not cover people who entered community corrections probation supervision after April 21, 2021 and does not cover youth offenders or prisoners outside of the jurisdiction of the Kansas Department of Corrections.

The tool is convenient to use, and the search form has only a few options:

• Last Name
• First Name
• Middle Name
• KDOC Number

Searchers can specify whether they’d like to look for an alias as well as a formal name. In addition, there’s an option to specify whether to see photos in the results and whether photos should be displayed as thumbnails.

Disabling thumbnail photos may be useful for users who have a slow connection or whose bandwidth is metered.

Clicking “Advanced Search” expands the search form to show other options such as age range, race, gender and the conviction county.

After filling out any details known about the offender, users can click Search to see a list of inmates. Clicking on an inmate’s name shows their name and any known aliases, as well as their birthdate, demographic information and current custody status.

Kansas has eight adult correctional facility sites, three satellite sites and one juvenile correctional facility. Information about these facilities can be found at the links below:

• Kansas Correctional Facility Map
• Parole Services Information
• Visitation Information for Kansas State Prisons
• Video Visitation Information for Kansas State Prisons
• Kansas Victim Information Notification Everyday
• Kansas Department of Corrections – Victim Services

How To Search for Prisoners in Federal Facilities

Inmates who committed a federal crime may be held in a federal prison. The main source of information about federal inmates is the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) inmate locator search page.^{1, 8}

This tool allows users to search by first name, middle name, last name, race, sex and age. The tool also provides options for searching by various inmate numbers (such as FBI numbers) if such details are known.

To perform a name search, both the first name and last name must be provided. The results page is limited to a maximum of 100 results, so providing any additional details, such as the offender’s age, could help narrow down the results in the event the inmate has a common name.

The BOP database contains records of offenders who were incarcerated in 1982 or later. More details about what is and is not covered by the database can be found on the BOP’s Inmate Locator Information page.⁹

To find information about inmates who were incarcerated before then, searchers may wish to look at the National Archives,¹⁰ which has some federal prison records, including indexes to case files for the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, from 1895 to 1931.

Another option is to search case records on the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system.¹¹ There is a nominal fee to access records via PACER and to access it remotely, users must register for an account.¹²

Using the services listed throughout this resource, interested parties can find information about prisoners, whatever kind of facility they’re held in within the state; the right to perform a Kansas inmate search also comes with the responsibility to use this information responsibly and for the public good.