Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) runs the state’s prison system — 22 State Correctional Institutions (SCIs), all state-operated (Pennsylvania holds no state inmates in private prisons) — across three regions (Eastern, Central, and Western), holding roughly 37,000 people. PADOC’s materials mostly use the word inmate; this site uses neutral terms. (The system had 23 SCIs until early 2026, when SCI Rockview and the Quehanna Boot Camp closed.)

Where a person is held turns first on the sentence. A person sentenced to state time (generally two years or more) goes to a PADOC SCI; pretrial detention and shorter sentences are served in a county jail or prison run by one of Pennsylvania’s counties, which sets its own visiting, mail, and phone rules and is not in the state inmate locator.

Newly committed people are processed at a diagnostic and classification center first — men at SCI Camp Hill (near Harrisburg) and women at SCI Muncy — for an evaluation that can take weeks to months before transfer to a permanent prison, so the SCI shown in the locator may change. Pennsylvania keeps the death penalty in law but has been under a governor’s moratorium since 2015 and has not carried out an execution since 1999; people under a death sentence are held at SCI Phoenix and SCI Somerset (men) and SCI Muncy (women). Two SCIs carry statewide health missions: SCI Laurel Highlands (skilled medical, long-term, and geriatric care) and SCI Waymart (the Forensic Treatment Center for psychiatric care).

To find where someone is held, use the state’s Locate an Inmate or Parolee search by name or DOC number; it covers state-sentenced people and PADOC parolees, not county-jail detainees. If a person is not listed, they may be in a county jail — search that county’s roster. Incoming personal mail goes to an off-site processing center (see the mail guide), and independent prison oversight is provided by the Pennsylvania Prison Society, whose official visitors may enter any prison. Use the guides below for the statewide rules at PADOC prisons, or go straight to a specific facility.