Does anyone know if you can find out if someone went to prison?

[hellisotherpeopleandhorlicks]

Random request I know. We lost touch with a family member years ago and are trying to track him down.
We think he went to prison about 20 years ago, and we know which county he would have been in and his address at the time but don't have any other details.
We wanted to find out if he is still in prison or if he was released, as a starting point.
We have very old info - which school he went to etc, but nothing recent.

The reason we lost contact is very long, but he essentially went down a bad path. I was young at the time, so was he, and now myself and my sister are trying to track him down for personal reasons I don't want to share on here but I have no idea how to go about it! Thank you :)

[Scootingthebreeze]

Try the prisoner location service for a start
Good luck

[hellisotherpeopleandhorlicks]

Thank you - from reading it seemed like it was for finding current prisoners only but perhaps that's not correct.

[hellisotherpeopleandhorlicks]

Everything seems to be behind a paywall!

[Scootingthebreeze]

It is for current prisoners, but there's a possibility your contact might be a current prisoner.

Unfortunately agencies only keep records for (I believe) 6 years due to DP laws, plus they would be very wary of giving out info to a third party. So if your relative was known to, say Probation or Social Services, they wouldn't be able to discuss anything or confirm that.

[NoWordForFluffy]

If he went to prison 20 years ago and you think he might still be there, then it must've been a pretty serious crime. I assume you've Googled his name + location back then as a crime that serious would definitely have been reported.