Search Carteret County Detention Center Inmates

Carteret County Jail Overview

The official Carteret County Detention Center page identifies the Beaufort facility as the county's only jail facility and places it under the Carteret County Sheriff's Office. That matters for lookup work. A person arrested by a municipal police department, sheriff deputy, or other local agency can still be booked into the same Carteret County Detention Center roster if the person is held locally by court order or other lawful authority.

The county's facility information page says the jail is responsible for the care, control, and custody of Carteret County inmates. It also says no inmate is held except by court order or another lawful authority. The same page stresses humane treatment and safety for staff, inmates, and visitors. Those official points fit the Carteret County Detention Center role: it is not a state prison, not a federal prison, and not an immigration detention center. It is the local confinement site for current county jail inmates.

The county facility screenshot from the detention center landing page shows how Carteret County groups inmate search, visitation, mail, communications, funds, and facility information from the same jail hub.

That source layout is useful because each public action starts from a different county page, even though the custody facility is the same.

Carteret County Jail Population

Carteret County Detention Center population figures must be read by source and date. The detention center landing page lists an average daily population of 117 inmates. The more detailed facility information page lists an average daily population of 128 inmates and an average confinement period of 24 days. A 2023 North Carolina Jail Administrators directory listed rated capacity as 117. A March 2026 WCTI report, quoting Chief Deputy John Nyberg, reported 151 inmates against capacity of 116 and described ongoing overcrowding.

The WCTI report adds the most current overcrowding context in the research file. It said the jail opened in 1995, that overcrowding had been persistent for years, and that officials sometimes transfer inmates to Brunswick, Wayne, Franklin, or other counties when Carteret County Detention Center is over capacity. That local reporting should not be blended into the county's official average daily population, but it helps explain why a Carteret County arrestee may not always remain in Beaufort.

Carteret County Roster Lookup

Current Carteret County Detention Center inmates are searched through the county's official inmate inquiry flow. Start at the Carteret County Inmate Search disclaimer page, read the notice, and use the "I AGREE" path to open inmateinfo.carteretcountync.gov. The county disclaimer says the information is offered for public access, may come from the arrestee or arresting agency at the time of arrest, and may not yet include fingerprint or criminal-history quality checks.

1. Open the county inmate search disclaimer and agree to the public-information notice.
2. Use the By name search when the spelling is known. The name field supports autocomplete after at least two characters.
3. Use the charge-description search if the charge is known but the person's name is uncertain.
4. Use the recent-days search when looking for a new booking. The field shows a placeholder of 5 and accepts one to four numbers.
5. Open a profile from the results grid to check mugshot availability, Name ID, race, sex, admit date, admit time, confining agency, charges, court type, court date, bond, bond type, and arresting agency.

The Carteret County jail roster is the wrong system for sentenced North Carolina state prisoners. Use the NC DAC offender search for prison, probation, and parole records, including Carteret Correctional Center. For custody notifications rather than one-time searches, the North Carolina VINE portal is the documented notification channel.

Carteret Detention Contact

The jail and sheriff's records counter are close to each other in Beaufort, but they serve different purposes. Use the detention center phone for inmate inquiry questions, bond uncertainty, current custody questions, and visit scheduling issues. Use the sheriff records division for routine arrest reports, incident reports, accident reports, CAD reports, and mug shot requests when the online roster is not enough.

The sheriff's Professional Standards page says the Records Division maintains sheriff records and provides incident, arrest, and accident reports through the main office lobby. The county's public-records routing page points jail bookings and inmate information to the sheriff and court records to the clerk, so the fallback depends on the record being requested.

Carteret County Jail Visits

Ordinary social visits at Carteret County Detention Center are video-only. The official Carteret visitation page says in-person inmate visits are no longer available and that video visits run through Pay Tel. Each inmate receives one free 15-minute video visit per week. Additional visits cost 30 cents per minute. Visitors who lack a computer or mobile device may use the jail's on-site video kiosk, but the kiosk visit must be scheduled during lobby hours and must occur on the same day the person's former in-person visit had been scheduled.

The county visitation screenshot from the Pay Tel video visitation page documents the change from in-person jail visits to video visits.

That change is central to visit planning because families should not arrive expecting a glass visit or a traditional jail visiting room.

Carteret Jail Mail Money Phone

Carteret County Detention Center uses Paytel for inmate telephone calls and PayTel Communications for scanned personal mail. The inmate communications page says all calls are recorded and monitored. After admission, a person may make a free local one-minute call. Later calls use collect or debit arrangements, and recipients may need a Paytel account. To block calls, the recipient can contact the detention center administrator or Paytel.

Personal mail follows the digital mail rules that became effective April 4, 2022. General correspondence is not accepted at the jail. It must be sent to PayTel Communications in Greensboro with the facility name, inmate name or number, and Facility ID 5026. Legal mail and money orders are different. Legal mail goes to the Beaufort jail address, must be marked "Legal Mail," and is opened by staff in the inmate's presence. Money orders and certified checks also go directly to the jail, and the envelope must contain only that payment.

The official inmate mail page shows the PayTel scanning address, Facility ID 5026, and restrictions on page count, photos, books, contraband, decorated envelopes, and content that creates security risk.

The split between Greensboro scanned mail and Beaufort legal mail is one of the main Carteret County Detention Center details to verify before sending anything.

Carteret Jail Records Fallback

If the public inmate inquiry does not answer a question, the next path depends on the record. The jail phone at 252-504-4832 is the best first fallback for current custody or an inmate search problem. The sheriff records line at 252-728-8400 ext. 8801 is the better path for routine arrest reports, mug shots, offense reports, accident reports, and CAD records. The online county public-records form can route some requests, but the county's own public-records page separates sheriff records from court records.

For formal court files after a jail arrest, check the North Carolina courts system rather than the jail roster. Court dates and case records route through the Carteret County Clerk of Court and the NC courts Portal. For someone transferred to state custody, search NC DAC. For a federal sentence, use BOP. For immigration detention, use ICE's locator. Each system answers a different custody question.