Macon County Jail Roster Overview
The Macon County Sheriff's Office runs the local jail and publishes its inmate records through a free public portal called the Macon County Inmate Inquiry. The system is built on the Tyler and New World inmate inquiry platform. The page header reads "Macon County Inmate Inquiry," and the only housing facility it lists is the Macon County Jail. A search needs no account and showed no fee during review.
The roster has a clear boundary. It tracks people in county custody, which means pre-trial detainees and those serving short local sentences. It does not show sentenced state prisoners, federal inmates, or immigration detainees. Those records live in the Illinois Department of Corrections locator, the federal Bureau of Prisons locator, and the ICE detainee system. A later section maps each one so a search lands in the right place.
One quirk is worth knowing before you start. The inmate inquiry is hosted at a plain IP address rather than a branded sheriff web address, and the sheriff's Corrections menu links to it as "Current Inmate Information." The page does not publish a refresh interval, so a current count reflects the moment of the search rather than a live, minute-by-minute feed. On June 10, 2026, an in-custody search returned 225 records out of a jail the sheriff lists at 425 beds.
How to Use the Macon County Inmate Roster
The roster lives at a direct URL, and the form is plain. Start with a name. If the name is common, a subject number or booking number narrows the list quickly. The steps below follow the live search screen.
- Open the Macon County Inmate Inquiry in any browser.
- Enter the person's last name in the Name field.
- Check "In Custody" for current inmates, or add a booking date range for an older arrest.
- Open the linked name to read charges, bond, court dates, and housing facility.
The booking number follows the format YYYY-000NNNNN, such as 2026-00000756, and the housing facility dropdown shows only "Macon County Jail." Use Clear to reset the form for a new search.
Macon County Roster Search Fields
The form accepts several fields, and none is marked required, so a single last name will run. The table lists each field, its type, and a short note on what it expects.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Text | No | Searches full or partial name; no wildcard instruction shown. |
| Subject Number | Text | No | Person identifier; a sample value was 86355. |
| Booking Number | Text | No | Format YYYY-000NNNNN, such as 2026-00000756. |
| In Custody | Checkbox | No | Limits results to people currently jailed. |
| Booking From / To Date | Date | No | Used to search a booking window; dates render M/D/YYYY. |
| Housing Facility | Dropdown | No | Only option shown is Macon County Jail. |
What a Macon County Inmate Profile Shows
A click on any name opens a full detail page. It starts with demographics, then photos, then booking history, bonds, court information, and charges. A sample profile reviewed on June 10, 2026 even held bookings and photos from earlier years. The table summarizes the fields most readers look for.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Booking Number | Per-booking identifier in YYYY-000NNNNN format. |
| Booking Date | Date and time the booking was recorded. |
| Charges | Charge description, offense date, docket number, crime class, and arresting agency. |
| Bond Amount | Total bond and bail, plus a bond table with number, type, and amount when populated. |
| Housing Facility | The facility holding the person; the current option is Macon County Jail. |
| Custody Status | In-custody flag, scheduled release date, prisoner type, and classification. |
A sample inmate detail page, with its demographics, mugshots, bonds, and charge table, is shown on the public inmate detail page.
The same page often shows prior booking photos, which is why a person flagged "Multiple Bookings" can carry several images and several charge histories. Booking photos and how to request them are covered on the jail roster mugshots page.
The result grid you see before opening a profile carries its own set of columns: a photo, the name, the subject number, the in-custody flag, a scheduled release date when one exists, race, gender, height, weight, a multiple-bookings flag, and the housing facility. Several of the terms on these screens trip up first-time readers, so the short glossary below defines the ones that matter most.
- Subject Number
- A person identifier in the roster, kept separate from any single booking number.
- Booking Number
- An event identifier for one jail admission, written as YYYY-000NNNNN.
- Classification
- A jail security and housing category; a sample value was "Medium."
- Prisoner Type
- A charge grouping shown on the roster as Felony, Misdemeanor, or Traffic.
- Detainer
- A hold from another agency that can keep a person in custody after a local case clears.
- No-Bond Hold
- A custody status where a posted bond will not release the person.
Finding County, State, and Federal Inmates
The county roster is the first stop, not the only one. A person who was sentenced to prison, taken into federal custody, or held on an immigration matter will not appear on the sheriff's list. Each of those custody types has its own search tool, and the table points to the right one.
| Custody | Where to Look |
|---|---|
| Pre-trial / short sentence | Macon County Inmate Inquiry (sheriff) |
| Sentenced felon | Illinois Department of Corrections locator |
| Federal | Federal Bureau of Prisons locator |
| Immigration hold | ICE Online Detainee Locator System |
The state tool is the IDOC Individual in Custody Search, which searches by last name, IDOC number, or birthdate. Federal inmates appear in the Bureau of Prisons locator, and immigration detainees use the ICE detainee locator. For release alerts on an Illinois case, VINELink Illinois sends custody-status notifications.
Macon County Jail Facilities
Two detention facilities sit in the county, and they hold different populations. The Macon County Jail is the local, sheriff-run facility and the one the inmate inquiry tracks. Decatur Correctional Center is a state prison run by Illinois, so its inmates appear in the IDOC locator rather than the county roster.
Macon County Jail
333 S. Franklin Street
Decatur, IL 62523
(217) 424-1341
Corrections line, 24 hours
Decatur Correctional Center
2310 East Mound Road
Decatur, IL 62526
(217) 877-0353
State prison, IDOC custody
Each facility has a full page with lookup steps and visiting details. Start with the Macon County Jail page for the local roster, or the Decatur Correctional Center page for the state prison.
Booking Process in Macon County
An arrest starts the chain. The arresting agency, often the Decatur Police Department or the sheriff, takes the person into the Macon County Jail. The jail then opens a record, assigns a subject number and a booking number, and logs the date and time. A booking photo is taken, identity and demographic details are entered, and the person is classified into a housing category such as Medium.
Charges, bond fields, and court dates attach next. The roster may show a scheduled court date as soon as it is entered, and a sample booking carried a court date the day after intake. Illinois changed how pretrial release works under the Pretrial Fairness Act, so many current records show a bond of $0.00 while a judge decides custody. The county does not publish a refresh interval, so the roster should not be read as a real-time feed even though current photos and counts appear on it.
Visitation Hours and Rules
The Macon County Jail uses HomeWAV for all inmate communications, and it separates on-site visits from online video visits. On-site visits run in fixed blocks on weekdays and weekends, while video visits run seven days a week. The lobby closes on Macon County legal holidays and may close for emergencies or severe weather.
| Day | Hours | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Monday–Friday | 7:20 a.m.–11:40 a.m.; 1:00 p.m.–5:45 p.m.; 7:15 p.m.–8:40 p.m. | On-site |
| Saturday–Sunday | 8:20 a.m.–11:40 a.m.; 12:30 p.m.–3:40 p.m. | On-site |
| Seven days a week | 7:00 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; 7:15 p.m.–10:45 p.m. | Online video (HomeWAV) |
Visitors must bring readable government identification, arrive five minutes early, and leave cell phones out of the booths. A visit may include two adults, or one adult and two children. The full rules and the video login appear on the jail visitor page.
Confirm an appointment window and the inmate's custody status before traveling, since holiday and weather closures are common.
How to Contact a Macon County Inmate
HomeWAV handles inmate phone and video communication for the jail. Families create an account at the vendor to schedule video visits and connect. Postal mail follows the jail's inmate mail policy, which the sheriff links as a PDF from the Corrections menu. Because the policy details were not fully readable during review, this page does not guess at scanning rules, photo limits, or contraband lists. Confirm the current mail rules with the jail before sending anything.
When the roster cannot answer a question, the access chain has clear fallbacks. Call Corrections at (217) 424-1341, which is staffed 24 hours, visit the office at 333 S. Franklin Street, or file a FOIA request through the sheriff FOIA page for records that are not online. No official Macon County Sheriff app with a separate inmate roster or warrant lookup was confirmed in the sources reviewed.
Commissary and Inmate Funds
Money for an inmate goes in two ways. Families can deposit online through JailATM, which the sheriff links as "Make an Online Payment," or mail a money order to the Inmate Trust Account at 333 S. Franklin Street, Decatur, IL 62523, with the inmate's full name on it. The sheriff's money page names both methods, and specific vendor fees are not posted at the office level.
The deposit instructions and the JailATM link appear on the send money to an inmate page.
Before sending funds, confirm the person is still in county custody, since a transfer to state prison moves their account to a different system.
Note: Always confirm an inmate's current custody status with the jail before sending money or scheduling a visit, because transfers and releases happen daily.