Start With the Union County Sheriff's Office
No official Union County online jail roster was located. There is no county web page where a person can type a name and pull up everyone in custody. That makes the Sheriff's Office the most direct fallback for current county custody, because the office runs the jail and books people in. A short phone call is the dependable way to confirm whether someone was recently arrested, what the bond looks like, and whether the person is still being held.
The Sheriff at the time of this research is Jimmy Edwards. The office can speak to recent bookings, release status, and how to reach the jail, though staff cannot give legal advice. Have the full name and, if possible, a date of birth ready before calling, since common names can match more than one person.
Union County Sheriff's Office
300 Carter Avenue
New Albany, MS 38652
662-534-1941
Fax: 662-534-1993
Mon-Fri 8am-5pm
Union County Jail Custody vs MDOC State Custody
Custody is not one thing. County jail custody is short-term. It covers people held after an arrest, those waiting for a first appearance or trial, and people serving a short local sentence. State custody is different. It begins after a person is sentenced to state prison or classified by the Mississippi Department of Corrections, known as MDOC.
This split matters for the search. A person arrested by the Union County Sheriff's Office or a city police department first appears in the local jail system. From there a misdemeanor or traffic matter may stay in Justice Court or Municipal Court, while a felony can be bound over to Circuit Court. The state inmate search will not show a county pretrial detainee, and the Sheriff's Office is not the place to track someone already in a state prison.
Court dates and bond orders live with the court, not the jail. A booking record and a court file are two separate things, so confirming one does not confirm the other.
The path a case takes after booking shapes where to look next. A bond may be set by a Municipal Court, a Justice Court, or the Circuit Court depending on the charge and the stage. A felony often moves up to Circuit Court, while a smaller matter stays at the lower-court level. Because a person can shift from local jail to state prison over time, a search that came up empty last week can succeed this week from a different system. Matching the search to the current stage is the difference between a quick answer and a dead end.
Search Mississippi State Inmate Records
The real online tool for Mississippi custody is the state MDOC inmate search, not a county roster. It is built for sentenced inmates and people under parole or post-release supervision. A user can search by name or by the assigned MDOC identification number. The official lookup is the Mississippi Department of Corrections inmate search.
That page is the state-level counterpart to a county jail roster, and it is the right place to look once a person has been sentenced to state time. The search fields are simple, and the table below lists what the form accepts.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search Criteria | Radio | Yes | Choose Name or ID Number. |
| Last Name | Text | Conditional | Used for a name search. |
| First Name | Text | Conditional | Used for a name search. |
| MDOC ID Number | Text | Conditional | Used for an ID search. |
| Search | Button | n/a | Submits the request. |
Note: The MDOC search covers state custody and supervision, so it will not return a Union County detainee who is still in the local jail before sentencing.
The MS.gov Inmate Roster Route
Mississippi also exposes the same state data through its MS.gov services portal. The search criteria there is a choice between Name or ID Number, which matches the main MDOC form. It is a useful backup if one site is slow or under maintenance. The portal is the MS.gov MDOC inmate search.
Both routes pull from state corrections data, so neither is a substitute for the Union County Sheriff's Office when the question is about a fresh local arrest.
How to Find Someone in Union County Custody
With no single roster to search, the smart path is to work the channels in order, from local jail to state prison. The steps below follow that order so a call is not wasted on the wrong office.
- Call the Union County Sheriff's Office at 662-534-1941 for a recent arrest, current county jail custody, bond amount, or release status.
- Have the person's full name and date of birth ready, since name-only requests can match more than one record.
- If the person has been sentenced to state prison, search the MDOC inmate tool by name or MDOC ID number instead.
- For a court date, a bond order, or a bench warrant, contact the court handling the case rather than the jail.
- If a record is not released by phone, ask the office how to submit a public records request for available booking information.
Working from local to state avoids the most common mistake, which is searching MDOC for someone who is still sitting in the county jail.
What a Union County Inmate Profile May Show
No public Union County inmate profile was inspected during this research, so the fields a local booking record shows are not confirmed. The safest approach is to ask the jail what public booking information it can share for a given person. The table below lists the kinds of details a booking record commonly carries, framed as items to ask about rather than guaranteed fields.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Full Legal Name | The name the person was booked under, sometimes with known aliases. |
| Booking Date | When the person was brought into the jail. |
| Arresting Agency | Which agency made the arrest, such as the Sheriff's Office or a city police department. |
| Charges | The offense or offenses recorded at intake, which can change as a case develops. |
| Bond Information | Whether a bond is set, held, or denied, if the office releases it. |
| Custody Status | Whether the person is still held, released, or transferred. |
Important: Do not assume a Union County profile lists a mugshot, housing pod, or bond broken out per charge, because none of those fields were confirmed for the county jail. Ask the Sheriff's Office what it can release.
Confirm Bond and Court Dates in Union County
A jail can tell you whether a person is held, but the bond order and the court date come from a judge. Bond may be set by a Municipal Court, a Justice Court, or the Circuit Court depending on the charge and the stage of the case. That is why a custody question often needs two calls, one to the jail and one to the court.
A felony charge points toward Circuit Court and the Circuit Clerk. A traffic or misdemeanor matter points toward Justice Court or a Municipal Court. A bench warrant or capias can also create a hold at the jail, and that custody is tied to the warrant. The warrant side of that hold is tracked in the Union County warrant records, which explains how to confirm and clear an outstanding order.
Always confirm a court date with the court itself. Jail staff are not the record keepers for hearings, and a date given casually is not a substitute for the docket.
Request Union County Booking Records
When a phone call is not enough, the formal route is a public records request to the Sheriff's Office under the Mississippi Public Records Act. The policy of the state is that public records should be open for inspection unless a law says otherwise, which is set out in the Mississippi Public Records Act.
Booking and incident records are not unlimited, though. Active investigations, juvenile matters, victim privacy, and court orders can all limit what the Sheriff's Office may release. A request that names the person, the date range, and the type of record helps the office find the file and decide what is releasable. The charges side of a case, once filed, is followed through the Union County arrest records and charges, which is a different file than the jail booking sheet.
A written request also creates a clear record of what was asked and when. If the office withholds part of a file, it can point to the reason without releasing the protected detail. For anything tied to an open case, the court remains the better source for the charge, the bond, and the next date, while the Sheriff's Office speaks to the custody itself.
Visitation, Mail, and Commissary in Union County
No official Union County jail visitation schedule, mail policy, commissary vendor, or money-deposit method was located in accessible sources. Because of that, the only reliable answer is to call the Sheriff's Office and confirm before acting. Jail rules also change for lockdowns, staffing, court transport, medical isolation, and holidays, so a schedule that held last month may not hold today.
The table below points each common question to the office that can verify it. Treat every item as something to confirm with the jail, not as a published rule.
| Topic | Official Channel to Verify |
|---|---|
| In-person visitation schedule | Call the Union County Sheriff's Office at 662-534-1941. |
| Video visitation availability | Ask the Sheriff's Office; no official vendor page was located. |
| Mail rules and format | Ask the Sheriff's Office about the name and booking format and prohibited items. |
| Commissary and money deposits | Ask the Sheriff's Office; no official deposit link was located. |
| Inmate phone calls | Ask the Sheriff's Office; no official phone-provider page was located. |
| Attorney visitation | Coordinate with the Sheriff's Office and the court handling the case. |
Visitors should expect photo identification checks, dress rules, and contraband screening as general jail practice, but the exact terms belong to the Sheriff's Office. Calling first is the only way to avoid a wasted trip to New Albany.
The Sex Offender Registry Is Separate
A jail roster and a sex offender registry are not the same record. The registry is a public safety tool maintained by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, and it lists registered offenders rather than people currently in custody. It supports a name search, a geographical search near an address, and a listing by ZIP code. The official tool is the Mississippi sex offender registry.
A captcha and a disclaimer gate the deeper search, which is standard for registry sites. The registry answers a different question than an inmate search, so a person can be on the registry without being in any jail at the moment.
Union County Inmate App and Access Gaps
The official Union County government site offers a download link to a mobile app landing page hosted by its vendor. At inspection, the app-store links on that page were blank, and no inmate lookup, warrant search, or booking feature was confirmed inside the app. It should not be treated as a custody tool.
The honest picture is a county with no public online jail roster and no confirmed app feature for custody. That puts the weight on the phone and counter channels, with the Sheriff's Office for local custody and the state MDOC tool for sentenced inmates. Naming the person and the likely stage of the case up front makes every one of those calls shorter.