McHenry County Correctional Facility Inmate Lookup

McHenry County Correctional Facility Overview

The facility is operated by the McHenry County Sheriff's Office through its Correctional Bureau. Sheriff Robb Tadelman leads the office, and Chief of Corrections Ryan Sciame oversees the jail's daily operations. It is a county adult jail, not a state prison, so the people inside are local: adults awaiting trial on McHenry County charges and adults sentenced to the county for terms of 364 days or less. Anyone sentenced to more than 364 days is transferred to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The building sits on the McHenry County Government Center campus in Woodstock, alongside the courthouse, the Circuit Clerk, and the State's Attorney. The public roster excludes juveniles and federal detainees, even when a person may physically be in the building. The facility once held immigration detainees under a federal contract, but that role ended after Illinois barred local ICE detention contracts, so it is treated today as a former, not current, immigration detention site.

The Sheriff's command-staff page names the jail's leadership and describes the office structure.

The command-staff page confirms Sheriff Tadelman and Chief of Corrections Sciame, which matters because the Correctional Bureau is the source of the roster data and the office that answers records requests.

McHenry County Correctional Facility Capacity and Population

The Sheriff's About the Jail page lists a capacity of up to 650 inmates and 156 correctional officers and staff. The 2022 Illinois Department of Corrections inspection matched that 650-bed figure, splitting it into 602 male and 52 female beds, and counted 180 people in the building on inspection day. Other official Sheriff documents report higher average daily figures, so no single number captures the whole year.

A 2021 PREA audit reported an average daily population of 341 over the prior 12 months, with 271 present on the first audit day. A Sheriff volunteer handbook puts the average daily range at 450 to 500 and notes that operating capacity is lower than the bed count, because men and women must be housed apart and classification separates inmates by case type. In 2024 the jail agreed to hold up to 150 inmates for neighboring Lake County during a staffing shortage there, a sign it had beds to spare at that time.

How to Look Up an Inmate at the McHenry County Correctional Facility

Because this is a county jail, the right tool is the Sheriff's roster, not a state or federal locator. The roster is published as two PDF lists, one by name and one by date confined, and both update every hour. The detailed walkthrough lives on the jail inmate records page, and the short version is below.

1. Open the Sheriff's corrections information page and choose the by-name or by-date list.
2. Use your reader's find function to search a last name, JCA number, or case number.
3. Confirm the person is currently confined and read the charges, class, and next court date.
4. If the name is missing, call the jail at 815-338-9396, or switch to the state or federal locator for sentenced or federal custody.

For custody-change alerts rather than a one-time lookup, Illinois VINE sends notifications by phone, text, or email.

The Illinois VINELink page, or the statewide VINE line at 866-566-8439, registers you for release, transfer, and court-date alerts tied to the McHenry County Correctional Facility and the wider state system.

McHenry County Correctional Facility Address and Contact

The jail shares an address with the Government Center, but visitors and mail use specific entrances and lines. The county directs correctional-facility visitors to the North/West Entrance off Ware Road, separate from the courthouse doors.

Visiting Someone at the McHenry County Correctional Facility

The jail uses video visitation in place of glass-partition visits. Visits run on-site at the jail kiosks or off-site from a personal computer or mobile device through the ICSolutions service, and every visit must be prescheduled. All visits are recorded and may be monitored. The published time windows are the same every day of the week.

On-site visits are limited to two visitors, who must be 17 or older or accompanied by an adult with valid photo ID. Children 16 and under stay under direct supervision, appropriate attire is required, and a visit can be canceled for weather, lockdown, meals, maintenance, or any facility need.

Mail, Phone, and Money at the McHenry County Correctional Facility

Each contact method has its own vendor and rule. Mail must move through the U.S. Postal Service and cannot be dropped off. Phone service runs through ICSolutions, and money for an inmate account is handled by Access Corrections, with a lobby kiosk and money orders as backups.

Mail without a sender name and return address is treated as unauthorized and held in the inmate's property until release. Photos are capped at ten per envelope and no larger than 4 by 6 inches, and books or magazines must be pre-approved and shipped directly from the publisher.

Booking and Intake at the McHenry County Correctional Facility

An adult arrested on local charges is taken to the facility for processing. Staff record the person's identity, date of birth, age, and the date and time of confinement, then assign or use a jail control number. As case data becomes available, the roster begins to show a case number, charge class, next court date, courtroom, and a bond or no-bond line. Under the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act, a judge sets release conditions or orders detention rather than a routine cash-bail amount, which is why many entries read "No Bond At This Time."

The public roster does not publish a detailed booking procedure or a housing assignment, and it begins to display a person only after the next hourly update runs. For an immediate custody question while the record catches up, the jail main office at 815-338-9396 is the place to call.

About the McHenry County Correctional Facility

The first McHenry County Jail was established with the Sheriff's Office in 1837. A new government center followed in 1972, and a separate adult correctional facility was built nearly two decades later, with a further expansion the Sheriff dates to 2006. The 2022 state inspection lists the construction date as 1992 and the last renovation as 2005. Both sets of dates come from official sources, and they describe the same long history of growth on the Woodstock campus.

The Correctional Bureau is accredited by the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, and the Sheriff states it is one of only five correctional facilities in Illinois with ACA accreditation. The jail runs an Inmate Worker Program in the kitchen, laundry, and custodial services, and a seasonal Sheriff's Road Crew that handles roadside work under officer supervision. A Special Response Unit fields Tactical, Crisis, and Intel teams, and the office holds a zero-tolerance PREA policy against sexual abuse.

Some of the jail's rules carry small but telling details. The Road Crew runs from the first week of May to the second week of October, with up to four inmate workers supervised by two officers, doing trash pickup, pothole patching, seal coating, and guard-rail painting for local governments. Approved books are stamped for the jail and donated to its Corrections Library after the inmate reads them, rather than returned. Once sentenced to more than 364 days, an inmate transfers from this jail to the Illinois Department of Corrections, which is covered on the McHenry County inmate population home page.