The Tennessee Department of Correction, TDOC, describes its Offender Search as an online database of felony offenders currently or formerly in its custody or under its supervision, with the offender's photo, status as incarcerated, probation, parole or inactive, location, offense, sentence information, parole hearing status and release information. The search itself, FOIL, the Felony Offender Information lookup, runs by name, with a box to include aliases and a race filter, by TDOC ID, or by state identification number, the SID, behind a code the searcher types; the department and the Board of Parole, which share the service, make no warranty as to its accuracy, timeliness or completeness. FOIL is also inside MyTN, the state's official app, under Public Safety, and the page links VINELink for free notifications by text, email, phone or app.
The lookup covers felony offenders of the state system; a person held in a county jail on a local charge or a misdemeanor is the sheriff's record, found through the Tennessee county pages, and someone on probation or parole from another state while living in Tennessee is checked through the Bureau of Investigation's out of state supervision registry. The department houses more than 19,000 inmates at 14 prisons.
- Search: FOIL by name, TDOC ID or SID, for current and former felony offenders, with the location the mail and visiting rules need; help from the department through Constituent Services, from the Board of Parole at (615) 741-1150, and technical help at (629) 888-5870 or (888) 890-8183.
- Visits: an approved application on file for every visitor of any age, decided within 30 days of receipt at the assigned institution, then appointments made with the facility for Saturdays, Sundays or one evening a week, with a body scanner at the door and only a photo ID and car keys allowed in.
- Mail: since November 3, 2025 personal mail is scanned: the facility name, the inmate's committed name and TDOC ID at P.O. Box 247, Phoenix, MD 21131, with a return name and address; privileged mail from attorneys, courts and agencies still goes to the prison.
- Calls: no inbound calls; outgoing calls through ConnectNetwork at 7.5 cents a minute since July 1, 2024 to a list of ten approved numbers, funded by AdvancePay on your number or the inmate's PIN debit account, or through ICSolutions at 888-506-8407 at the CoreCivic facilities.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Tennessee's own systems: the Tennessee Department of Correction Offender Search page, the Tennessee Felony Offender Information search, FOIL, the FOIL help and FAQ page, the department's Inmate Visitation page, the department's Overnight Child Visitation page, the department's Inmate Mail page, the department's Inmate Phone Account page, the department's Constituent Services page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Visiting: the application and the appointment
Every visitor, whatever the age, needs an approved visitor application on file, submitted to the inmate's assigned institution and approved or denied within 30 days of receipt; no one visits before approval, the inmate is told the result and is responsible for telling the visitor, and the department posts the application and guides for adults and minors. Visits are by appointment only, made with the facility, on schedules the warden sets for Saturdays, Sundays and one evening a week for people who cannot come on weekends.
Smoking and vaping are banned on state property, firearms, weapons, drugs and alcohol are prohibited, vehicles may be searched, and everyone passes several screenings including a body scanner. Only a photo ID and car keys or a key fob come into the visitation area, with baby items such as diapers, formula powder and sealed baby food in a clear plastic bag; phones, smart watches and wallets stay in the locked car, and the vending machines take a debit card bought or loaded in the lobby first.
Spandex, transparent or translucent clothing, sleeveless shirts, bare chests or midriffs, camouflage, tattered clothes, bandanas, excessive jewelry, flip flops, shower shoes and steel toed shoes are out, and wardens may add rules. Contraband is anything not distinctly allowed, tobacco, cell phones, weapons and electronics included, and anyone attempting to bring it in is arrested, may be prosecuted and may lose visiting for good; visiting is a privilege that can be denied, ended, suspended or revoked at any time.
Every facility's scheduling line
The visitation page lists the contact for each prison. Bledsoe County Correctional Complex: (423) 881-6148 or (423) 881-6463, weekdays 8 to 4 Central, with applications mailed to the Visitation Department at 1045 Horsehead Road, Pikeville, Tennessee 37367. Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center: (615) 741-4918, Monday 8 to 8, Tuesday 8 to 4, Wednesday 8 to 3, or DJRC.Visitation@tn.gov, with weekend requests in by Wednesday at 3 p.m.
Hardeman County Correctional Facility: (731) 254-6013, Monday afternoons and Tuesday and Wednesday 8 to 4. Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility: (615) 350-3843, Monday and Thursday 8 to 3 and Tuesday and Wednesday 8 to 7, with inmates in transit eligible only after 14 days there. Mark Luttrell Transition Center: (901) 379-2934, Monday through Wednesday 8 to 7. Morgan County Correctional Complex: (423) 346-9190, Monday through Thursday 7 to 3.
Northeast Correctional Complex: 423-727-3391, Tuesday through Thursday 8 to 4 and Friday mornings, with applications to NECX, Attention AWO Office, PO Box 5000, Mountain City, TN 37683, without the inmate's name or number on the envelope. Northwest Correctional Complex: (731) 253-5116, Monday through Wednesday 8:30 to 3:30. Riverbend Maximum Security Institution: (615) 350-3750, Monday through Wednesday 8 to 4 and Thursday mornings, or RMSI.visitation@tn.gov.
South Central Correctional Facility: (931) 676-5346 ext. 72205 or by text at (931) 213-2152, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 8 to 3 and Wednesday 8 to 7. Trousdale Turner Correctional Center: (615) 808-0416, Tuesday through Thursday noon to 4, or TrousdaleVisitation2@Corecivic.com. Turney Center Industrial Complex: (931) 729-7963 for the main site and (931) 676-2973 for the annex. West Tennessee State Penitentiary: (731) 738-1594, Monday through Wednesday 8 to 6.
Whiteville Correctional Facility: (731) 254-9400 ext. 40821, Saturday through Wednesday 7 to 4. Women's Therapeutic Residential Center: (731) 738-1594, Monday through Wednesday 8 to 4.
Overnight child visitation
The department runs one of the few overnight child visitation programs in the country, letting eligible women spend two weekends a month with their children or grandchildren aged three months to ten years, at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center on the second and fourth weekends and at the Women's Therapeutic Residential Center every weekend, from 5 p.m. Friday to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, in a dedicated space with a play area, a kitchen and family rooms and an officer present throughout.
The inmate starts the request at her facility and must be at medium custody or lower, free of class C offenses for 90 days, class B for six months and class A for nine, have completed the parenting course, and supply an application and an authenticated birth certificate; one child visits at a time, convictions for child abuse or neglect exclude her unless the Department of Children's Services or a court recommends otherwise, grandmothers may take part after mothers, and negligence ends future visits.
The DJRC area is dedicated to Penny Bernhardt, warden there from 1972 to 1980 and 1986 to 1992.
Mail: scanned since November 3, 2025
On November 3, 2025 the department moved every TDOC facility from physical personal mail to scanned, digitized mail, with content rules in policy 507.02. A sender first finds the inmate's TDOC identification number and location in FOIL, where the location code names the prison, RMSI for Riverbend Maximum Security Institution or MCCX for Morgan County Correctional Complex, then addresses the envelope with the facility name, the inmate's committed name, with a court changed alias allowed, the TDOC ID and P.O.
Box 247, Phoenix, MD 21131, with a return name and address; mail for the Women's Therapeutic Residential Center is addressed to the West Tennessee State Penitentiary. Privileged mail, from attorneys, court clerks, legal aid clinics and government officials or agencies, still goes to the prison where the inmate is held, and any sent to the scanning facility is forwarded; outgoing mail is unchanged.
Calls: 7.5 cents a minute to ten numbers
The department permits no inbound calls; in a family emergency the facility chaplain may arrange one. The telephone system runs on ConnectNetwork, powered by GTL, at a per minute rate cut to 7.5 cents on July 1, 2024, with accounts managed online and most payments credited within two business days. A family member funds calls through AdvancePay, money placed on the family's own number, or through PIN Debit, a deposit to the inmate's own phone account for calls to any approved number, with fees disclosed at the transaction; the CoreCivic facilities that use Inmate Calling Solutions take accounts at icsolutions.com, 888-506-8407 or customer@ICSolutions.com.
An inmate may have up to ten numbers on the approved list, changed only through the unit team, and a person who wants off a list writes to the warden or superintendent; policy 208.08 governs the debit system. The department's Trust Fund Account page, its route for sending money, carried no readable text when read on October 14, 2026, so this guide gives no deposit vendor or fee for Tennessee.
Help, requests and parole
The Office of Constituent Services takes questions from victims, families, legislators and partners through an online request form, with sentence information answered from FOIL, a tips hotline, and sections on visitation, supervision, day reporting and community resource centers and record requests. Parole hearing schedules come from the Board of Parole at Davy Crockett Tower, 500 James Robertson Parkway, Nashville, Tennessee 37243-0850, (615) 741-1150, BOP.webmail@tn.gov, which with the department stands behind the FOIL data; voting rights restoration goes through the Secretary of State, and the Bureau of Investigation keeps the background check, the drug offender registry and the sex offender registry.
Reading a Tennessee result
A FOIL record tells whether a felony offender is incarcerated, on probation or parole, or inactive, where, and what the sentence and next parole hearing hold, with a location code that names the prison for the envelope and the scheduling line. A county jail inmate is outside it, the application and the appointment both run through the prison, and the letter goes to Maryland while the privileged one goes to the prison.
Questions about finding an inmate in Tennessee
Related Tennessee records
FOIL is one of the Tennessee records this site covers: the Tennessee arrest records guide explains what a booking makes public, the court records guide covers the clerks of court, the sex offender registry guide covers the TBI registry, and the Tennessee county pages list each sheriff and jail.