Mesa County Detention Facility Inmate Search

Mesa County Detention Facility Overview

Mesa County Detention Facility, often shortened to MCDF, is operated by the Mesa County Sheriff's Office Detentions Division. The jail is at 215 Rice Street in Grand Junction, in the same public-safety campus used by Sheriff's Office administration and detention services. Sheriff Todd Rowell's office identifies the detention facility as the county's adult jail and says the Detentions Division accepts arrestees from all local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies in Mesa County. That means a person arrested by the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, Grand Junction Police, Fruita Police, Palisade Police, Colorado State Patrol, or a federal agency may still be booked through this one adult county facility.

The jail holds adult arrestees, pretrial detainees, people serving local jail sentences, people held on warrants, people waiting for bond or release processing, and people pending transfer to another custody system. It is not the Colorado Department of Corrections prison system and it is not the Colorado Department of Human Services youth facility. Sentenced adult state prisoners should be checked through the Colorado Department of Corrections Offender Search after transfer, while youth custody at Grand Mesa Youth Services Center follows CDHS/DYS procedures rather than the county adult jail roster.

The official Mesa County Detentions material describes MCDF as a direct-supervision county detention facility with food service, 24-hour medical care, educational programming, video first advisements, and a secure tunnel connection to the Mesa County Justice Center. The history and population pages explain why maximum beds are not the same thing as usable custody space: jail staff must separate males from females, co-defendants from one another, violent inmates from nonviolent inmates, and special-management inmates from the general population.

Mesa County Detention Facility Capacity and Population

The official Mesa County inmate-population page, inspected June 1, 2026, lists 553 beds plus additional temporary bed space in Booking. The same source says the building was originally designed for 392 inmates and that the Sheriff's Office target population is under 442 inmates, or below 80 percent of total available bed space. The target number is important because housing classification can make a jail operationally tight before every physical bed is filled.

Historic figures add context. The current Rice Street facility opened in June 1992 with a 192-capacity jail. A 1996 expansion brought capacity to 336 beds, and the August 2016 Maple dormitory conversion brought housing capacity to 438 beds. A Colorado Legislative Council overview listed Mesa County at 476 daily population against 440 capacity in 2017. Current official pages did not publish a single "today's headcount" for June 1, 2026, so the page should be read as a capacity and access guide, not as a live population counter.

The Detention Programs page states that approximately 80 percent of MCDF inmates are pretrial. That population mix explains why jail status can change quickly after bond hearings, court advisements, releases, warrants, and transfers.

The county's population page shows the capacity context used for jail planning.

Use the official page for bed-count and target-population language, then use the current-custody locator or jail information line to check a specific person's status.

How to Look Up an Inmate at Mesa County Detention Facility

The correct public lookup path for MCDF is the Mesa County Sheriff's Office Inmate Locator. The county explainer says the locator contains people currently housed in Mesa County Detention Facility and their current bond. It is a current-custody tool, not a complete archive of every past booking. If the online search does not resolve the person, call the inmate locator line at 970-244-3930 or use the jail information recording at 970-244-3536 for routing.

1. Open the Mesa County Sheriff's Office Inmate Locator.
2. Choose Last Name, Date of Birth, or Booking Number from the search dropdown.
3. Enter the matching search value and submit the form.
4. If several people match a last name, select the correct booking number to open the profile.
5. Read any bond or hold warning carefully, then confirm time-sensitive release or bond details with MCDF.

The separate Mesa County Blotter Reports system provides Booking Summary Reports for the last 30 days. Those PDFs list people booked into MCDF within the prior 24 hours of the report date. A booking summary can help when someone was recently arrested but does not yet have an easy-to-find current profile, or when the searcher needs a recent booking event rather than a current housing assignment.

The direct locator form is simple, but the scope is narrow: it searches current MCDF custody.

If a person no longer appears, check release, transfer, court, CDOC, federal, or ICE channels depending on the case history rather than assuming the record was wrong.

Mesa County Detention Facility Address and Contact

MCDF public contact information is split by purpose. The main Detentions phone is for facility routing, the inmate locator phone is for locating a current inmate, and the jail information recording provides general custody information. Records requests for Sheriff's Office records are handled by the MCSO Records Unit under Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act and Colorado Open Records Act procedures.

Visiting Someone at Mesa County Detention Facility

Mesa County uses virtual video visitation through IC Solutions for eligible inmates. Personal phone calls and personal video visits are subject to recording and monitoring. Video visits can be scheduled online through IC Solutions or by calling 1-888-646-9437. The inmate must be in the facility for 72 hours before visitation can be scheduled, and inmates on sanctions are not eligible. Eligible inmates may receive one free video visit per week; extra visits may have a fee.

The official visitation page links scheduling, phone-call rules, and inmate email information in one place.

Confirm visit eligibility before scheduling, especially after booking, discipline, transfer, court movement, or a housing change.

Mail, Phone, and Money at Mesa County Detention Facility

MCDF uses different vendors and addresses for different services. Personal mail is sent to a Phoenix, Maryland scanning address and delivered digitally by tablet. Legal mail still goes directly to the Detention Facility. Paperback books and magazines must come directly from approved publisher or retailer sources and use the Grand Junction P.O. Box format. Inmate email uses GettingOut after the inmate is housed, but tablet availability depends on housing area.

The lobby kiosk accepts cash or credit card deposits during lobby hours, but it does not accept $1 bills or coins. Phone accounts are separate from commissary deposits, so use IC Solutions for phone and video accounts and Access Corrections for inmate funds. The Sheriff's Office also warns that real inmate calls identify the inmate and require an ICSolutions account before the call can be received.

Booking and Intake at Mesa County Detention Facility

Booking is both a record event and a physical operation at MCDF. The official history page says newly arrested inmates are housed in Booking until classification and housing assignment occur. Some people bond out before they are moved into long-term housing, and some people needing extra supervision may remain in Booking. That timing explains why a recent booking report, a current locator profile, and a housing assignment may not always line up cleanly during the first hours after arrest.

First advisements can occur from inside the jail by video. For later court proceedings, MCDF and the Mesa County Justice Center are connected by a secure internal passageway, so a court date may happen without a visible public transport route. Bond information in a locator profile should be treated as a starting point. The county bond page explains cash, surety, property, personal-recognizance, and cosign bond types, and the jail profile can warn that bond hearings generally must be held within 48 hours under C.R.S. 16-4-102. Confirm current bond status with the jail or court before trying to pay.

Property Release at Mesa County Detention Facility

Property release is documented separately from commissary and mail. Inmates still in Booking can have some property released to a designated person during business hours. Housed inmates may have some property released to a designated person Monday-Friday at 11:00 a.m. The same 11:00 a.m. weekday timing applies to remaining property for people transferred to the Colorado Department of Corrections. The inmate must complete a Property Release Form before the recipient arrives, and the form is available on the inmate tablet in Booking. The recipient must have valid government-issued photo ID, and county-observed holidays can interrupt property-release timing.

About Mesa County Detention Facility

The current jail was completed in June 1992 at an estimated cost of $8 million and replaced older jail locations in Grand Junction, including the 1962 jail at 655 Ute Avenue. The official history page says the modern facility does not use traditional jail bars and instead uses more than 600 automated reinforced doors. Expansion and remodeling have added pods, bunks, Booking capacity, and the Maple dormitory-style housing unit over time. A later expansion plan was put on hold indefinitely after COVID-19 and a sustained population decrease, while a 2024 sliding-door project was a maintenance project rather than a jail expansion.

Programs and services documented by Mesa County include work opportunities, Trinity food service, NaphCare medical, mental-health, and dental services, chaplaincy, Jail Based Behavioral Services, library, education, exercise yards, and transition support. These programs do not change the basic lookup rule: current adult jail custody is searched through the county locator, recent booking events through Blotter Reports, sentenced adult prison custody through CDOC, and youth custody through CDHS/DYS.