Start with the fact that sends the most people to the wrong building.
If the person you are looking for is a woman, she is not in Essex County. Essex County houses its female inmates at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, 6000 Sheriffs Place in Bourne, on the way to Cape Cod. That is roughly a hundred miles from Middleton. Locator questions go to the Barnstable County Sheriff at 508-563-4300, and the visiting rules, mailing address, and money vendor down there are all different from the ones on this page.
Families find this out after the drive. Confirm it first.
There is no online inmate search in Essex County
Worcester County runs the only public inmate lookup in Massachusetts. Essex is not Worcester. There is no searchable database on the Sheriff’s website and no third-party site that reliably mirrors one.
To find out whether someone is in Essex County custody, call 978-750-1900. For a bail amount specifically, ask for Records at extension 3400.
Be careful with the aggregator sites that appear above the Sheriff’s own pages in search results. They sell background reports and their custody data is frequently years old.
Which building, and which one is not a jail
Essex County Sheriff Kevin F. Coppinger runs custody at three locations, plus offices that hold nobody.
- Middleton Jail and House of Correction, 20 Manning Avenue, Middleton, MA 01949. Main phone 978-750-1900. This holds both people awaiting trial and people serving sentences, and it is where the great majority of Essex County inmates are.
- Pre-Release and Re-entry Center, Lawrence. Lower-security transitional housing.
- Women in Transition Center, Salisbury.
The Sheriff’s office does not publish street addresses for the Lawrence and Salisbury centers. Call 978-750-1900 rather than trusting an address you find elsewhere.
Nobody is held in Salem. The Salem and Lawrence Civil Process offices serve court papers. People go there looking for an inmate and find a records counter.
Visiting Middleton rotates by housing unit, and this is the part that goes wrong
Most jails have a visiting day. Essex does not work that way.
At Middleton, each day of the week serves specific housing units. Unit 240-D visits on different days than unit 60. If you show up on the wrong day for your person’s unit, you do not get a visit, no matter how far you drove.
Which means the first thing you need is not the schedule. It is the housing unit your person is in. Ask them, or call and ask.
The department posts a fresh calendar every month as a PDF on its visits page. Download the current month rather than relying on any schedule reprinted elsewhere, including this one, because the rotation changes. The calendar’s own header says it plainly: schedule subject to change.
A few features of the rotation hold steady enough to plan around. Most units get an afternoon block at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 and an evening block at 6:00, 7:00, and 8:00. Saturday and Sunday are day visits only, with no evening block. Most visits run 30 minutes, though units 60, 80U, and 80L get 45.
You must book 48 to 24 hours ahead, in a three hour window
Middleton visits are by appointment. You call 978-750-1900 extension 3472 to make one, and here is the constraint people miss: the appointment line is only staffed from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., and the booking must be made between 48 and 24 hours before the visit.
Book too early and it will not take. Call at 4:00 p.m. and nobody answers. Call the morning of and you are inside the 24-hour cutoff.
Plan on arriving 30 minutes before your scheduled time.
The rules differ by facility, which is worth knowing if your person moves to pre-release:
- Lawrence requires no appointment. Visits run 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., rotating by building, and there are no visits on Friday.
- Salisbury requires an appointment at extension 3728, with a maximum of five appointments per time slot. Visits are one hour.
One thing about Salisbury deserves emphasis. Those visits are held outside and can be cancelled for weather. Call before you leave, particularly in winter or in rain.
First-time visitors file a form. At Middleton you may bring it with you. At Lawrence and Salisbury it must be emailed at least 24 hours ahead. The Sheriff’s site lists that email address inconsistently across two pages, one spelling with an extra syllable, so call and confirm the address before you send anything and assume it arrived.
Who can come, and what a child needs
The limit is two adults and two children per visit at all three facilities.
Minors must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian and stay under constant supervision. A birth certificate is required, and Essex has an unusual requirement: the certificate must show both the mother’s and the father’s names. Guardians need court paperwork proving custody.
Essex also publishes this restriction, quoted exactly as it appears: “Children/minors may only visit their father, brother, stepfather, grandfather or Legal Guardian.”
Read literally, that would bar a child from visiting a mother, sister, or grandmother. It may be a holdover from the fact that Essex holds no women at all. Either way, if you are bringing a child to visit a female relative, call first and get an answer from a person.
Dress code and what you can carry in
No bare shoulders, bare tops, or bare feet. No halter, tank, tube, cropped, or see-through tops, and no bathing suits. No hats, caps, kerchiefs, scarves, or bandanas. No clothing with holes, rips, or tears.
On what comes in with you, the policy is about as narrow as it gets: wedding bands, medical alert bracelets, and car keys are the only items authorized in the visit area. Everything else stays in the car.
Video visits are free, and the account takes a day
Essex uses Securus Video Connect. Register at videovisitsanywhere.com, where you will create an account and then take two photos by webcam: one of yourself, and one of your government-issued ID. They have to match or the visit is denied.
Allow 24 hours for the account to process. This is not same-day. Sessions run in 20-minute increments.
One trap worth flagging: the Essex system has three separate facility IDs, one for each correctional facility. Choose the wrong one and you have scheduled a video visit at a building your person is not in.
Video visits are free. The Securus instruction sheet still ends with a step telling you to enter payment information, which is left over from before Massachusetts eliminated these charges. Expect no charge, and call if you are billed.
Mail goes to Florida, not to Middleton
Essex no longer accepts personal mail at the jail. Securus opens, scans, and digitizes it, and the facility prints and delivers the copy.
Personal mail goes here:
Inmate Name, ID #, Housing Unit
c/o Securus Digital Mail Center / Essex County
PO Box 20527
Tampa, FL 33622
If you also write to someone in Plymouth County, note carefully: Plymouth uses a different PO Box at the same Tampa ZIP. Essex is 20527. Getting these crossed is easy and your letter will not be forwarded.
Three things still go to the facility itself rather than to Tampa: privileged and legal mail, money orders with the envelope marked CANTEEN, and publications sent directly from a publisher or authorized retailer.
Your original letter is held 60 days and then destroyed. If you want it back, enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. The department posts its mail FAQ in English and Spanish.
Attorneys: legal mail goes digital on October 1, 2026
Essex is discontinuing hard-copy legal mail delivery effective October 1, 2026. After that date, attorney correspondence goes through LIAM Legal, a free encrypted platform at app.liamlegal.com. Legal mail questions go to 978-750-1900 extension 3302.
Attorney visiting hours are 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Law students and paralegals may visit only during posted inmate visiting hours, with attorney authorization and an approved Form 3:03. Attorney video runs through Securus Attorney Client Video Connect.
Calls are free, and only the person inside can fix the phone list
Phone calls from Massachusetts correctional facilities have been free since December 1, 2023, when the Legislature eliminated the charges. That includes long distance and international. There is nothing to sign up for and no account to fund.
Calls are still monitored and recorded, except for pre-authorized attorney numbers.
Now the part that generates the most confused phone calls to the jail. Each incarcerated person maintains a Personal Allowed Numbers list of up to ten active numbers, and they manage it themselves. In the department’s words, family members cannot call to have numbers added or changed.
So if your number stopped working, or a new number is not going through, the fix has to come from the inside. Nobody at the front desk can do it for you.
Money on the books
Commissary is run by Aramark. Deposits go through ConnectNetwork, which is GTL.
- Online at connectnetwork.com
- By phone at 888-988-4768
- At a lobby kiosk in each facility
- Through the ConnectNetwork mobile app
- By money order mailed to the facility, envelope marked CANTEEN
For a phone deposit, have the full name, date of birth, inmate ID, and the Essex Site ID number 262. Instructions are posted in English and Spanish.
Fees and deposit limits are not published on the Sheriff’s site. There are fees on electronic deposits. Ask what they are before you send.
Separately, Aramark runs a package program through icaregifts.com, capped at two packages and $125 per month.
Posting bail: get there by 6:30
Bail at Middleton is processed nightly at 8:00 p.m., and you must arrive by 6:30 p.m. for a same-night release. That hour and a half is processing time, not padding.
Bring a cashier’s check or money order payable to the Bail Clerk on duty. Cash is accepted up to $5,000. Personal checks are not accepted. The person posting must be at least 18 with valid photo identification, meaning a driver’s license, passport, or transitional assistance card.
Call Records at extension 3400 first, both for the amount and to find out which Bail Clerk is on duty.
Property
Inmate property is picked up at Middleton, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Essex does not publish a court-clothes exchange policy or ID requirements for pickup. Other counties have detailed rules here and they do not carry over. Call 978-750-1900.
Common questions
Is there an Essex County inmate search online?
No. Massachusetts has one county with a public online lookup, and it is Worcester. For Essex, call 978-750-1900.
Where are Essex County female inmates held?
At the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, 6000 Sheriffs Place, Bourne, MA 02532. Call the Barnstable County Sheriff at 508-563-4300. Visiting, mail, and deposit procedures there differ from Essex’s.
How do I schedule a visit at Middleton?
Call 978-750-1900 extension 3472 between 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., 48 to 24 hours before the visit. You need to know your person’s housing unit, because visiting days rotate by unit.
Where do I mail a letter?
Personal mail goes to the Securus Digital Mail Center, PO Box 20527, Tampa, FL 33622, with the inmate’s name, ID number, and housing unit. Legal mail, money orders, and publications from a publisher go to 20 Manning Avenue, Middleton, MA 01949.
Do I pay for phone calls?
No. Calls from Massachusetts correctional facilities have been free since December 1, 2023, including long distance and international.
My number is not on the phone list. Can I call and add it?
No. The incarcerated person maintains their own list of up to ten numbers and must make the change themselves.
How late can I post bail?
Bail is processed nightly at 8:00 p.m., and you must arrive by 6:30 p.m. for release that night. Cash up to $5,000, or a cashier’s check or money order. No personal checks.
Verified against Essex County Sheriff’s Department published materials in August 2026. Schedules and vendors change, and the Middleton visiting calendar is reissued monthly. Call 978-750-1900 to confirm before you travel. General information, not legal advice.