The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction, NCDAC, runs the Offender Public Information Search, the offender locator with up to date information on state prison offenders, probationers and parolees from the department and its predecessor, the Department of Correction, with historical information back to 1972. The form takes a last, first and middle name, with a sounds like option, or the offender number, and filters by offender status, all, active inmate, active probationer or parolee, or inactive, by gender, race and ethnic group, by birth date with a tolerance of one to 15 years, or by an age range; a help guide explains the fields. Beside the search sit tools for escapes and captures, absconders, inmate releases and bulk downloads of the data, and the Automated System Query, which runs the same database to produce counts and demographics but never names. The database does not include county jail information, and the department states that it keeps records only for people who served time in an NCDAC prison or are under community supervision, with no access to local, county or city jail records; a person in a county jail is found through the North Carolina county pages.
The Division of Institutions is responsible for about 30,000 people in 53 prisons. Most offender records are confidential by law except basic information about the conviction, time served, sentence length and admission and release dates, which the search gives, and the department reminds the public that it is not the custodian of court records, police reports or divorce and marriage records, which belong to the Judicial Branch and the clerks of court, that background checks and the sex offender registry belong to the State Bureau of Investigation, and that prison medical records are released only to a former offender, never to an active one or the family, under policy S.1900 and General Statute 148-74.
- Search: the Offender Public Information Search by name or offender number, filtered by status, gender, race, birth date or age, for state custody and supervision since 1972, never county jails.
- Release date: the projected release date on a record is an estimate from the sentence, pretrial credit and sentence credits earned and expected, and moves with new sentences, court orders, earn levels and discipline; the sentencing court, reached through the clerk in the county of conviction, decides sentence length, pretrial credit and whether sentences run together.
- Mail and calls: letters, cards and photos to the offender's name and OPUS number, the prison's full name, P.O. Box 247, Phoenix, MD 21131, scanned by TextBehind to the tablet; calls and texts through ViaPath tablets, kiosks and wall phones at ten cents a minute, 15 minutes a call, with AdvancePay at 1-800-483-8314.
- Visits: by appointment with the prison, an 18 name list approved on applications the offender mails out, one two hour session a week with up to three visitors, a pat search at 16 and older, and video visits through the Getting Out Visits app.
Written by SearchSystems.net from North Carolina's own systems: the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction Offender Public Information Search, the department's Offender Information page, the department's Public Records page, the department's Constituent Services page, the department's Sentence Information page, the department's Offender Mail page, the department's Telephone and Tablet Services page, the department's Send Money to an Offender page, the department's Prison Visitation page, the department's Transfers page, the department's Order Packages for Offenders page, the department's Absconders page, the department's Prison Facilities and Regional Offices Contacts page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Mail: scanned by TextBehind
Non legal mail to anyone in an NCDAC prison is screened and scanned by TextBehind and delivered to the person's tablet, a process that began in late 2021 and, the department says, cut contraband arriving through paper soaked in fentanyl, K2 or Suboxone. Every envelope is addressed to the name and OPUS number, the prison's name spelled out, P.O. Box 247, Phoenix, MD 21131, as in John Doe #1234567, Scotland Correctional Institution, and the return address must carry the sender's full first and last name, not initials, or TextBehind sends it back.
Mail by post is scanned, letters, cards, photos and artwork alike, and forwarded to the prison for the tablet; mail written in TextBehind's app, by computer or smartphone with uploaded photos, can be processed within a business day. Materials for pre approved religious correspondence courses, sacred texts included, go directly to the prison, not through TextBehind, and the department's page answers whether originals come back, what the vendor will not process, how legal mail from an attorney travels and how books, magazines and newspapers are sent.
Packages come only from Access Securepak, the exclusive package vendor for every NCDAC facility, and each prison's canteen sells drinks, snacks, hygiene items, stamps and batteries.
Calls, texts and tablets
ViaPath, the former GTL, provides the tablets on which people in NCDAC facilities call, text, receive their digitized mail and reach educational and entertainment content, with kiosks and wall phones as alternatives. Local and long distance calls cost ten cents a minute plus state and federal taxes, every call is timed at 15 minutes, a call to a cell phone that drops early is not reimbursed, and the person needs enough in the debit account to cover it.
A family member funds calls through AdvancePay, prepaid money on the family's own number drawn down as calls arrive, set up at ConnectNetwork online or in its app, by phone at 1-800-483-8314, at a Western Union, or by check or money order to AdvancePay Service Department, PO Box 911722, Denver, Colorado 80291-1722, or funds the person's PIN debit account for calls to any allowed number; international callers use AdvancePay International at 1-888-216-7423.
ViaPath charges $3.00 for an automated card payment, $5.94 for a live operator, $2.00 for a paper statement, which is otherwise not mailed, and passes third party transmitter fees through without markup, and it takes Visa, MasterCard and Discover. Tablet entertainment minutes are bought at the canteen from the trust account, and deaf or hard of hearing family can use a video relay service.
Money: approved visitors only
NCDAC partners with ViaPath and its subsidiaries for deposits, and only those identified as approved visitors for the offender may deposit to the account; help is at ViaPath's line, 877-650-4249. Web, mobile, phone and walk in deposits reach the account on the next business day: online at ConnectNetwork by card, in the ConnectNetwork app, by phone at 888-428-1845 for trust deposits and PIN debit, or in cash at a Western Union location with the payment code NCDAC TRUST.
A money order, the free option, goes with a deposit slip, in English or Spanish, payable to TouchPay, to TouchPay Holdings NCDAC, PO Box 649556, Dallas, TX 75264-9556, since prisons neither accept nor process money orders, and is available within ten business days. The fees effective August 1, 2023 run from $2.48 online, $3.27 by phone and $3.00 at Western Union for a deposit under $20 to $8.16, $8.95 and $3.00 for $200 to $300, with money orders free.
Visiting: the 18 name list and one session a week
Visits are by appointment only, made by calling or emailing the prison, with a call the day before to confirm the facility's status, and the department says people are not assigned to prisons for the convenience of visiting. A completed application must be approved by the facility before any visit: the offender obtains blank forms from the facility, no more than 18, and mails them to the people he or she wants to see; each adult and minor completes one, attaches a copy of an approved photo ID at 16 and older, a driver's license or state ID from any state's motor vehicle agency, or a birth certificate under 16, and returns it to the prison where the offender is housed; applications from the offender, copies and incomplete forms are refused, and the offender tells the applicant the result.
An application may be denied for a prior criminal record, a part in the crime, an ex offender released less than 12 months, or probation or parole ended less than six months before, with possible exceptions for immediate family. Each offender is allowed 18 approved visitors, adults and minors together, with legal, law enforcement, consular, family services and juvenile court officials and clergy on form DC-949P outside the count; only immediate family, those who acted as family, and those officials may visit more than one offender.
The list stays active on a transfer, goes inactive at release or parole, and at 18 names changes only in the open enrollment period every six months from the admission month, when a name must come off before another goes on. An offender gets no more than one visiting session a week of no more than two hours, apart from legal, law enforcement and clergy visits, with up to three visitors, a number the warden may change for space, and those in administrative or disciplinary segregation or control status have non contact visits by appointment.
Visitors 16 and older are pat searched and scanned by the least intrusive means, male officers searching only men, a refusal means no entry, cell phones are contraband, and the policy, D.0200, is explained by the warden. Video visits run through the Getting Out Visits app or a computer with a camera, on demand or scheduled, for people on the approved list.
Transfers, release dates and absconders
Transfers are mandatory, for operational needs, or discretionary, which only the offender can request after six months at the current facility and 90 infraction free days, through the case manager, weighed on security, custody level, jobs, programs, education, medical needs and bed space with no right to a transfer; an approved person waits on a backlog for a bed, an infraction restarts the 90 day clock, and the department says transfers that should take about 90 days currently take six months or more because of staffing closures and the air conditioning project at 40 prisons; the visiting list carries over, the date and time are never shared, and families confirm a location on the department's site before a visit.
The projected release date on a search record is calculated from the sentence, pretrial credit awarded, credits earned and credits expected, and changes with additional sentences, court orders, earn levels and discipline; questions about the sentence itself go to the clerk of court in the county of conviction, and the department asks the public not to contact case managers on a person's behalf. About 80,000 people serve community supervision in the state, and those who stop reporting and hide are absconders, pursued by probation and parole officers and Absconder Capture Enforcement teams; a tip goes to 888-646-0024, anonymously, and the full list is searchable on the offender information site.
Offices, notifications and victim services
The Division of Institutions has four regional directors, for the Western, Eastern, Central and South Central regions, named with phone numbers on the department's contacts page, and each prison has its own page with its address and visiting information. NC SAVAN, the Statewide Automated Victim Assistance and Notification service, gives free, confidential notice of custody status by phone, email, text or TTY for county jail inmates, state prisoners, probationers, parolees and registered sex offenders; Victim Support Services answers at 1-866-719-0108 and svc_dac_victimservices@dac.nc.gov, takes a No Contact Request so an offender may not write or call, and takes a Victim Opposition to Inmate Location form so an inmate is not housed in the counties where the victim lives and works.
The Constituent Services office gathers the questions of families, the public, victims and justice involved people, and the Interstate Compact tracker covers probationers and parolees whose supervision moved to another state.
Reading a North Carolina result
A record is a state matter: a prisoner, probationer or parolee since 1972, with a projected release date that is an estimate and basic conviction facts that are the only public part of the file. Everything a family does next runs on the OPUS number and the approved visitor status, the mail through Maryland, the money through ViaPath or Dallas, the visit by appointment with the prison, and a county jail inmate is never in this search.
Questions about finding an inmate in North Carolina
Related North Carolina records
The locator is one of the North Carolina records this site covers: the North Carolina arrest records guide explains what a booking makes public, the court records guide covers the eCourts portal, the sex offender registry guide covers the SBI registry, and the North Carolina county pages list each sheriff and detention center.