Mishawaka Jail Roster and Inmate Lookup
The Mishawaka jail roster is maintained at the St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend, where all Mishawaka Police Department arrests are booked and held. Mishawaka does not run its own city jail, so anyone arrested within city limits is transported to the county facility at 401 W. Sample St., South Bend, IN 46601. You can search the current roster online through the St. Joseph County Sheriff's Office or the statewide INjail portal, both of which are free to use and available any time of day.
Mishawaka Quick Facts
Mishawaka Police Department
The Mishawaka Police Department serves the city around the clock. Officers handle calls for service, conduct investigations, and make arrests throughout the city. The department is headquartered in Mishawaka and operates as a full-service municipal agency. The non-emergency line is 574-258-1678 and is available at any hour for non-life-threatening situations.
Mishawaka sits directly east of South Bend in St. Joseph County. The two cities share a border and work closely on public safety matters, but they are separate jurisdictions with separate police departments. When Mishawaka officers make an arrest, the person is transported to the St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend rather than held in any city-run facility. The city has no holding cells for general inmate custody. This means all current booking data for Mishawaka arrests lives in the county jail system, not at the police department itself.
| Agency | Mishawaka Police Department |
|---|---|
| Non-Emergency | 574-258-1678 |
| Arrests Booked To | St. Joseph County Jail, 401 W. Sample St., South Bend, IN 46601 |
| County Page | St. Joseph County |
For questions about a specific arrest or to request records, contact the Mishawaka Police Department directly. For custody status and booking information, reach the St. Joseph County Jail through the Sheriff's Office.
Mishawaka Jail Roster at St. Joseph County Jail
The St. Joseph County Jail holds all persons arrested in Mishawaka. The Sheriff's Office provides an online inmate search at sjcindiana.gov/1274/Jail that shows current inmates by name. That search pulls live booking data from the county jail and includes details like booking date, charges, and bond status. It covers anyone arrested by Mishawaka Police, South Bend Police, the county sheriff's deputies, or any other agency working in St. Joseph County.
The statewide INjail portal at public.indianajail.gov also covers St. Joseph County. The portal shown below pulls booking records from participating Indiana county jails, including St. Joseph County, and lets you search by name without going directly to the county site.
Source: INjail Public Portal
INjail is especially useful as a backup when the county site is unavailable or when you want to check whether someone may have been booked under a different county.
The St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend is a full county-operated facility. It processes bookings from all agencies in the county, updates booking records as charges are filed or changed, and manages the release process. If you cannot find someone through the online search, call the jail directly through the St. Joseph County Sheriff's Office to ask about recent bookings by name.
VINE Victim Notification for Mishawaka Arrests
VINE, which stands for Victim Information and Notification Everyday, is a free custody-tracking service that monitors the St. Joseph County Jail. If you need to know when a specific inmate is released, transferred, or has any change in custody status, you can register with VINE and receive automatic alerts. Sign up at VINELink.com or call 1-866-959-8463 to register by phone. The service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you do not need to be a crime victim to use it.
Once registered for a specific person, VINE sends a notification by phone, email, or text when that person's status changes. This removes the need to keep checking the county inmate search manually. For family members of someone arrested in Mishawaka, VINE is the most reliable way to track release timing or movement between facilities without making repeated phone calls to the jail.
Booking Records and Public Access
Indiana's Access to Public Records Act, codified at IC 5-14-3, makes most booking records at the St. Joseph County Jail available to the public. A standard booking record contains the person's name, date of birth, home address, booking date, charges filed, arresting agency, and bond amount. For Mishawaka arrests, the arresting agency listed will be the Mishawaka Police Department. You do not need a court order or attorney to access these records. They are open to anyone and can be obtained through the online search or by a written request to the Sheriff's Office.
Indiana Administrative Code at 210 IAC 3-1-6 sets the standards county jails must follow when creating and storing inmate records. These rules apply to the St. Joseph County Jail and ensure consistent record-keeping across the state. Records for active investigations or juvenile cases may be partially withheld, but standard adult booking records are routinely public. If you need older records for a person who has already been released, submit a public records request in writing to the Sheriff's Office. A response is required under state law within a reasonable timeframe.
Additional Resources
If you cannot find someone in the St. Joseph County Jail roster, they may have been convicted and moved to a state facility. The Indiana Department of Correction Offender Locator at offenderlocator.idoc.in.gov tracks people held in IDOC prisons, community corrections placements, and work release programs. The county jail and IDOC are separate systems. Someone may move from county custody to state custody after sentencing, and the county search will no longer show them at that point.
The INjail Public Portal at public.indianajail.gov is a good tool for searches that span more than one county. It covers St. Joseph County and most other Indiana counties, so you can search by name across the state without calling each sheriff's office. Both the IDOC locator and INjail are free and require no registration. For anyone arrested by Mishawaka Police, start with the St. Joseph County inmate search and use INjail as a secondary check.
Nearby Cities
Other cities near Mishawaka in northern Indiana are listed below. South Bend and Goshen also route arrests through their respective county jails.