Inmate Search Maine: How To Find An Inmate In Maine

If you live northeast of the USA in Maine, you may have spotted any of the eight state prisons or 13 county jails around the state.

But if you ever have reason to look for an inmate in Maine, you must know exactly the right places to search.

There are procedures that you must follow, paperwork that you may deal with, and fees that you may be required to pay while searching for the inmate in person. 

If you wish to cut right through the chase and the paperwork trail, the internet has plenty of resources that will prove helpful to your quest.

In this article, we suggest some of these resources, in the form of government-run websites, search portals, online databases, and third-party platforms that you can try out.

Your job should be much easier and straightforward after you've had a good read. 

Maine Inmate Records Explained

When a person arrested in Maine is made to undergo a series of interactions with the state's judicial system en route to possible imprisonment, they leave a trail of relevant information along the way.

The information includes their booking information, bio-data, criminal charges, mugshots, and rap sheets.

Along the line, other information including court reports, sentencing information, and important dates are added to the pool. 

All of this information and much more is compiled in a document that is known as an Inmate Record.

These inmate records are designated as public records in Maine, and the Freedom of Information Act rules on the extent to which they can be accessed by members of the public. 

How to Perform an Inmate Search in a Maine State Prison

The Maine Department of Corrections(MDOC) is the agency that manages the 13 state prisons and other state-run correctional facilities.

It runs a website featuring an inmate lookup tool provided by its Adult prisoner and probationer search service.

At this website, you'll be required to complete and submit an online adult inmate search form containing as much information as possible about the inmate in question. 

This information includes the inmate's Full names, MDOC number, age, weight and height range, gender, race/ethnicity, hair color, scars, and other physical descriptors.

You can also provide the inmate's location, current status, and offense to make your search more accurate. 

The higher the number of information provided, the smaller the search results field will be.

And when you eventually find the right result, you should find much of the information that you'll normally find in an inmate record. You can now use this information to easily find the inmate in question. 

How to Perform an Inmate Search in a Maine County Jail

If your subject is serving in a Maine county jail, they probably are there on a pre-trial basis or are serving at most a one-year jail sentence.

Inmates of this kind can be found in 13 county jails across Maine, with their management and supervision being the primary responsibility of the Sheriff's Office.

While a few counties will publish an inmate roster where you can quickly search for your subject, others may provide an inmate search portal where you can run an inmate lookup. 

With just the name of the inmate, you can launch a search through the county jail's online database and find a list of inmates bearing similar names to the one you type in the search entry box.

But if you provide a law enforcement agency-issued inmate ID number, your search would be quicker and yield the inmate record of the inmate you have in mind. 

Maine VINELink 

The VINELink is a countrywide platform that provides crime victims with information about their offenders.

This information includes notice of their offender's custody status, their transfer across prisons, release, probation, court hearings, etc. It is a service that is offered under the MDOC's coverage. 

Persons interested in registering with VINE have to provide their phone number and email address.

And when there is a significant update in the custody status of the offender, the registrant will be notified by any or all email, mail, or phone number.

The numbers (800) 968-6909 and (207) 287-4385 can be contacted for persons living in Louisiana whenever they need information about an offender of interest to them. 

Third-party Websites

People living in Maine or anywhere else mostly resort to Third-party websites whenever they need to quickly search for a person or a public record.

A third-party search website in the USA is a site that, despite its non-affiliation with the government, has an extensive collection of public records in its possession.

These public records provide the backdrop against which they provide results to search queries of any sort, including inmate searches. 

So if you were to enter the name and state of your subject as requested, you'd be shown several results matching your query.

To further narrow the results, you can provide additional information about your subject.

If your subject is a former or active inmate, they'll have their profile displayed alongside personal and case-related information in the final search result.