Transfers & Finding Someone in Arkansas (ADC)

State prison or county jail

Whether someone is in an ADC state prison or a county jail depends on their case. County jails (run by the county sheriff) hold people awaiting trial and people serving short local sentences. ADC holds people serving felony state sentences. Each county jail sets its own rules — this guide covers the ADC state system.

Arkansas has a long-standing backlog: because the state prisons are crowded, a person sentenced to ADC may remain in the county jail for weeks or months before a bed opens. Importantly, a person on the ADC waiting list does not appear in the ADC inmate search until ADC actually admits them — so a newly sentenced person may not be findable in the state system yet.

Reception and classification

A newly admitted person enters ADC through a reception unit, where they are assessed and assigned a class and a unit:

• Men: the Ouachita River Correctional Unit in Malvern.
• Women: the McPherson Unit in Newport.

Intake typically takes a few days. After classification, men are assigned to a parent unit (such as Varner, Cummins, Grimes, or Ouachita River) and women to McPherson or the Hawkins Unit; women sentenced to life or life without parole are assigned permanently to McPherson. The assigned unit can change in the first weeks.

Finding someone

Use the ADC Inmate Population Information Search (inmate.ark.org), which looks people up by name or ADC number and shows the current unit and offense information. The search lists people currently in ADC custody; it does not show people held under the interstate compact from other states, or people still in a county jail on the ADC waiting list. If a person is not found there, they may be in a county jail — check the county sheriff’s roster.

Custody notifications

Arkansas takes part in VINE, which sends automated alerts about an inmate’s custody status — release, transfer, escape, and more. Register at vinelink.com or by phone at 1-800-510-0415. ADC’s Victim Services office can also be reached at (870) 267-6677. These services are available to anyone, not only registered victims.

A note for families looking for someone under a death sentence: Arkansas’s male death row is at the Varner Supermax Unit, and the state’s execution chamber is at the Cummins Unit.

Verify Before Acting

For the general, nationwide overview of this topic, see the national guide: Know Your Rights.