Explore Knox County Mugshots (Free Lookups)

Check out arrest photos of various individuals through a Knox County mugshot search and find out if someone you know or anyone in the neighborhood was recently arrested.

Through the Ohio Public Records Act, interested individuals are given the right to access public records, including arrest, criminal, and background check records—with the exception of expunged records and other restricted information determined by the court.

This resource serves as a manual for record seekers on the best ways to retrieve mugshots from various sources, ranging from local law enforcement to state correctional agencies.

How To Find Mugshots at No Cost: Top Free Resources

Mugshots, also known as police photographs, are photos of individuals taken after their arrest. This information is added to their arrest record and then carried out to their criminal record once convicted.

To find the mugshots of an individual, searchers may look for the arrest or criminal record of the person. The best sources would be from the official custodians of these records.

The agencies that provide trusted resources about arrest and criminal records of various individuals are those maintaining the overall safety and protection of a specific area or region and supervising jail and prison inmates.

Such agencies often include the following: the police departments of cities and towns, the county sheriff’s department, the state’s department of corrections, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and others. These offices maintain the safety of the municipal to state region.

The details of these agencies, the information they can provide, and the process to obtain these records will be explained in depth in the following sections.

Steps To Access Knox County Mugshots (No Fees)

As the agency that carries out law enforcement services to the local residents of the county, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office has a jail division that supervises and maintains a safe and secure detention center for inmates.

The Knox County Sheriff’s Office keeps the records of each inmate to their jail roster and makes it available to the public for free. The current inmate list is provided to the public online in a pdf form with the following information: the individual’s front mugshot, full name, initial arrest date, hold reasons, and the charges for all hold reasons.¹

In order for you to find a specific arrestee, you may press the “CTRL + F” keyboard shortcut and then enter the name of the individual – starting with the last name with a comma (,) and then the first and middle name – for you to be directed to that specific information.

If you require more details about an individual, you may process a public records request for information that is only available for a fee.²

For other inquiries, you may contact the records division using the following information:

Knox County Sheriff’s Office
11540 Upper Gilchrist
Mount Vernon, OH 43050

Phone: 740.399.3904
Fax: 740.393.5277
Email: [email protected]

For information that will include other locations, a background check request is necessary – either an FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) or BCI (Bureau of Criminal Investigation) background check at $32 each, or both FBI and BCI background checks at $64 with other requirements.

You will need to schedule an appointment with the sheriff’s office by calling 740.399.3927 or 740.397.3333 (option #5) for the following days: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM or anywhere from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM. The payment shall be made by check or money order only – credit cards and cash are not accepted – and payable to the “Knox County Sheriff’s Office.”

You may also use VINELink, a third-party online service, in finding the mugshot of an inmate in Ohio for free.³ This offers an offender search service to anyone who would like to know the custody status of inmates and other information.

Knox County Jail: Inmate Resources & Services

The Jail Division of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office sets up various inmate services and programs (including the programs of The Freedom Center and the New Directions Domestic Violence Support Center) that will help offenders during their rehabilitation with the goal of reducing any repetitive offenses from the same individuals.⁴

Inmate Accounts: You may deposit funds to the inmate’s account through the JailATM website. This fund will be used to pay the inmate’s purchases at the Commissary, any service fees the individual used during the confinement (either pay all or part of the cost), intake and release processing fee of $20, and others.

Commissary Services: Inmates are allowed to bring limited acceptable possessions inside the jail while the other items needed daily can only be purchased at the Commissary.

Inmate Visitation: If you’d like to visit an inmate, you can do so through remote (using your smartphone, computer, or tablet) or onsite visit (using a video visitation terminal in the lobby).

To visit an inmate, you have to first schedule your visit via Securus Technologies by going to their website; choose either “Video Visitation” or “Onsite Visit”; then, set up an account with the website with a positive picture ID ready (either a driver’s license, a government ID, a passport, or a state ID).

Once your visitor account is approved by the Knox County Jail, you may schedule your visit with an inmate. Onsite visits will require you to present your terminal number and PIN number.

Inmate Mail: Inmates are allowed to receive either personal or legal mail from families and other associates. Legal mail will be accepted directly by the Knox County Jail, while personal mail will be received by Securus through their Digital Mail Center.

Legal letters must be addressed in this format:

Sender:

Full Name
Address
City, State, Zip Code

Receiver:

Inmate’s Full Name & ID number
Knox County Jail
11540 Upper Gilchrist Rd.
Mount Vernon, OH 43050

On the other hand, personal letters will be addressed in this way:

Sender:

Full Name
Address
City, State, Zip code

Receiver:

Incarcerated Name & ID Number
Knox County, Ohio ℅ Securus DMC (Digital Mail Center)
P.O. Box 20125
Tampa, Florida 33622

Once received, personal letters will either be scanned digitally and delivered to the inmate or will be printed and made available to the detainee through kiosks or tablets.

Bond Posting: To pay any bonds in Knox County, you may contact the Adult Court Services at:⁵

Knox County Common Pleas Court
Adult Court Services
118 E. High St.
Mount Vernon, OH 43050

Phone: 740.397.4023
Fax: 740.393.3805

For information about probation and pretrial services, you may also check out the guidelines to search different types of public records within Knox County, Ohio.

Retrieve Mugshots Through Municipal Police Agencies Within Knox County OH

Knox County is composed of six (6) villages and one city – which is the Mount Vernon (the county seat), and is divided into 22 townships.⁶

For security and protection, four (4) of these villages and the City of Mount Vernon have their own police department, while the other two – the Villages of Centerburg and Gambier – contracted for law enforcement services with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.

These police departments have records of individuals that were arrested within their jurisdictions, which may include their mugshots (police photographs).

However, they don’t have online arrest databases, so the best option to retrieve these arrestee’s records is to process a written request through various methods – including online submission, mail/email/fax submission, or by visiting the department in person.

For you to know the most efficient method to use in requesting arrest records in a specific police department, you may call the agency or check their website using the information listed below which includes their link page, contact information, and addresses.

*The Danville Police Department also has police reports for Brinkhaven Village and Apple Valley.

**The Village of Martinsburg doesn’t have an online website.

Step-by-Step Guide To Viewing Prison Mugshots (Ohio State & Federal Offender Photos)

State prisoners are under the supervision of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction (ODRC), overseeing the institutions within the South, North, and Specialty regions of the state.

To find the mugshots of these prisoners, you may use the Offender Search tool hosted by the ODRC with choices to either do a Name, County of Commitment, Residential County and/or Zip, Next Parole Hearing Date, or through a Offender Number search. The search tool provides a note on the process on how to do these types of searches and the information you must have to do them.⁸

The search results will immediately display the mugshot of each matching profile with their full name, ODRC number, date of birth (DOB), status, and offenses.

You can find more information about the offender, such as their offense and sentence information and other helpful links defining various important terms, by clicking each of this prisoner’s ODRC number.

The ODRC also provides mugshots of parole violators and sex offenders found on their own databases.⁹

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), on the other hand, has prison institutions located throughout the United States with two (2) facilities found in Ohio – Cincinnati Residential Reentry Management Office (RRM) and Elkton Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) – housing and managing more than 150,000 federal inmates.

To find the information of these federal inmates, you may use the BOP’s offender locator that contains records of incarcerated individuals – whether in custody, released, or under parole/probation – from 1982 up to present.¹⁰

The offender locator can be browsed by entering either the inmate’s full name or the register ID number from BOP, DCDC (District of Columbia Department of Corrections), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), or INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service).

The search results will show the inmate’s full name, register number, race, age, sex, release date, and location/custody status (mugshot is not available).

Once you select the specific inmate you are looking for, you will be able to find other links that might help you with your purpose in looking the individual’s record including the ways on how to call or email the inmate, send packaging/mail, deposit funds to the inmate’s account, visit them in prison, or send a message to the agency about their concern.

The Ohio Public Records Act gives way for Ohians to view or request for records available from various public offices from local to state records and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) summarizes the proper ways to use such records, with the goal to stop others from taking advantage of anyone, discriminating on someone and preventing others from receiving any benefits from what they deserve.¹¹

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) implements the FCRA which promotes equal employment opportunities to any individuals within the United States despite their diversity.

It is really important to know how to properly use various types of public records within Ohio or anywhere else – including these inmates’ photographs taken from a Knox County mugshot search; it could seriously affect many people’s lives either in a positive or negative way.