NCROOTS-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: [NCROOTS-L] PRISONS
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 14:15:00 EST

Quite a few of us have ancestors, descendants and just plain ol relatives who
have been in prison. All too often we are intimitadated by the penal system
and do not check out this resource. And frankly, dealing with the penal
system can be stressful at times. Those people are accustomed to dealing with
a group of people who do not argue with them, and sometimes do not gracefully
make the transition to dealing with those of us who do argue with them.

Always remember when dealing with penal system people that they are public
servants on state jobs, and the information they have on our dear ones is a
matter of public records, open in most states. I have had to remind them of
those facts some times.

Every state usually has a Department of Corrections, or some similar name.
This is the big boss who is over all of the various state prisons,
reformatories, etc. You generally get more information from the top than you
do when dealing with a specific prison. However, do not overlook each prison.
Sometimes there are records in a specific prison that did not make it into the
main computer at the Department of Corrections.

Inmates who died in prison are suppose to have had a death certificate filed
on them. Sometimes a prisoner dies and has no one to claim the body so he is
buried on prison grounds in a prisoner graveyard. Records are kept on these
cemeteries. Census records are kept on state prisoners also. These types of
records are just data, not usually filled with family information per se. If
you can prove the inmate has died, that you are related to him, and if the
confidentality grace period has expired, then you might get lucky and get to
see a copy of his file. Contained therein will be tons of personal
information, usually some good information on his famiy, birth certificate,
etc. You could also obtain all his records under the Freedom of Information
Act. There is a federal FIA and each state has one too. You would have to
contact the appropriate authorties to obtain the forms and instructions.

In this computer era most states have web pages. There is probably a link on
the state web page to take you to the Department of Corrections. Here is how
Oklahoma handles their web page.

<A HREF="http://204.62.19.52/docs/dochist/Histtoc.htm">Oklahoma Corrections
History ~ Table of Contents</A>

Each state should have such a page.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections
3400 Martin Luther King
POB 11400
Oklahoma City, OK 73136

Oklahoma State Penitentiary
pob 97
McAlester, OK 74501

Since I live in Oklahoma I am more familiar with Oklahoma matters, but each
state should have their web page and you can link to their DOC page easily, or
check in your phone book.

Jack Childers in OKC

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