Search the Menard County Detention Facility Roster

Menard County Detention Facility Overview

The Menard County Detention Facility is a county jail and local detention center operated by the Menard County Sheriff's Office. It opened in 1984, sits along Illinois Route 97 at 315 South Sixth Street in Petersburg, and is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The facility serves two roles for the county. It provides secure housing for inmates, and it houses the telecommunications dispatch service for county police, ambulance, fire, and rescue agencies. The people held here include local pre-trial detainees, county-sentenced and work-release inmates, warrant and out-of-county holds, and a number held for prosecution by the United States justice system.

The jail is rated at 26 beds, split into 24 male and 2 female. Its housing layout has stayed consistent across recent state inspections: 10 double cells, one double detention room, and one four-bed dorm. Inmate health care is provided through Advanced Correction Healthcare of Peoria. The facility is also approved to house federal detainees, though state inspection comments note none were present on some inspection days.

Menard County Detention Facility Capacity and Population

Capacity for the Menard County Detention Facility comes from the Illinois Department of Corrections jail inspection. The 2025 inspection on April 1, 2025 recorded a 26-bed rated capacity and a population of 3 people that day. The sheriff's live roster returned 12 current records on June 9, 2026. The inspection-day figure is a single-day count collected the same way each year, while the roster count is a live snapshot that can change within hours.

Inspection-day counts have trended lower lately: 10 in 2022 and 2023, 5 in 2024, and 3 in 2025, all against the same 26-bed cap. These are one-day readings, not a yearly average, and Menard does not publish an average daily population. The jail has run below capacity, so overcrowding has not been its reported issue.

How to Look Up an Inmate at the Menard County Detention Facility

Inmates at the Menard County Detention Facility are found on the sheriff's current inmate roster, hosted on the Zuercher portal. The page is labeled for current inmates in custody of the Menard County Sheriff's Office, and it is free with no login. You only need a last name to begin, though you can browse everyone in custody.

1. Open the roster at menard-911-il.zuercherportal.com/#/inmates.
2. Search by name, or narrow by race, sex, or the agency holding the person.
3. Confirm the person is in current Menard custody from the row.
4. Open the row for the booking photo, age, arrest date, and the hold reasons that describe charges, warrants, or sentence.

If a name does not appear, call the jail at (217) 632-2273 to confirm custody. For a sentenced state prisoner who has left the jail, use the IDOC Individual in Custody Search. For federal custody, use the Bureau of Prisons locator, and for immigration custody, the ICE detainee locator. The full roster walkthrough is on the jail inmate records page.

Menard County Detention Facility Address and Contact

The jail and the sheriff's office sit a short distance apart in Petersburg. Use the jail number for custody questions and the sheriff's office for records routing. The sheriff's office does not host a separate booking-record web form, so records requests go to the office under Illinois FOIA.

Visiting Someone at the Menard County Detention Facility

The Menard County Detention Facility offers in-person, non-contact visits two days a week. Each inmate gets one 20-minute visit on a visitation day. Sign-in opens 30 minutes before the start time, and no one is allowed in the lobby before that window. State inspection comments note the jail uses tablets for commissary, library, and visitation, but the sheriff's page does not publish a separate video-visit schedule, so confirm any video option with the jail.

Visitors must be at least 18 or come with a legal guardian. Photo identification is required, everyone signs in, all visitors are subject to search, and electronic devices are not allowed in the visitation booths. Confirm the schedule with the jail before traveling, since a person's custody status can change.

Mail, Phone, and Money at the Menard County Detention Facility

Inmate phone service is run by NCIC Inmate Communications, and no phone or calling cards are accepted. Commissary is provided by Stellar Services, and clothing or hygiene items are not accepted from outside because they must be bought through commissary. Cash and credit-card payments, including bonds, go through a lobby kiosk, money orders go to staff at the window, and JailATM handles online bonding and commissary deposits. For mail, the sheriff's page does not publish a strict format, so use the inmate's name with the facility address and call before sending.

Note: soft-back books may be accepted for the jail library, and prescription medication may be left with jail staff.

Booking and Intake at the Menard County Detention Facility

A person arrested in Menard County by the sheriff or a local police agency can be taken to the detention facility, which runs around the clock. Intake generally moves through identity confirmation, a search and property inventory, a booking photo, fingerprints, a medical screening, a review for warrants or holds, and a housing assignment. A public roster record appears once the person is in current custody and is not excluded from display. Booking is separate from the court case, which opens only after the State's Attorney files charges and the circuit clerk records it.

Federal Holds at the Menard County Jail

The Menard County Detention Facility is unusual for a small rural jail because it can hold people for the federal justice system. The sheriff's office says the facility houses a number of persons held for prosecution by the United States justice system, and the roster's agency menu lists active options for the United States Marshals Service and a generic federal hold. State inspection comments from 2022 and 2023 add that the jail is approved to house federal detainees, while noting none were present on those inspection days.

That means a federal defendant can show on the Menard roster while physically held in Petersburg. If the person later enters the federal prison system, the Bureau of Prisons locator becomes the right tool, since jail staff may no longer have current custody information after a transfer. For a federal pretrial hold that is not in the Bureau of Prisons yet, the county jail and the U.S. Marshals Service are the channels to check.

About the Menard County Detention Facility

The facility opened in 1984 in the county seat of Petersburg, and Illinois Department of Corrections inspection records list early-1985 construction and inspection data. The state inspects the jail each year, and recent reports document Advanced Correction Healthcare for medical care, Orkin for pest control, Stellar Services for commissary, and NCIC for phones. The 2025 inspection also recorded improvements, such as plexiglass added to a holding cell, alongside noncompliance findings for inadequate staffing, inoperable sliding cell doors, and missing commissary-audit documentation. These inspection reports are public under the state monitoring mandate. Once sentenced to prison, inmates transfer from the Menard jail into Illinois Department of Corrections custody, where the statewide locator takes over from the county roster.