Find Winona County Inmates

Winona County Jail Roster Overview

The Winona County detention facility is the Winona County Detention Center, or WCDC, at 203 W 3rd Street in Winona. The official jail page describes the county jail and links the inmate roster, jail programs, public fingerprinting, and court-ordered booking information. Sheriff Ron Ganrude's office is the county law-enforcement side of the process, and the jail side is where a person first shows up after booking. For active custody, this is the better source than the court file. For the later charge or disposition, use the court pages, not the roster.

Source: Winona County Detention Center page at winonacounty.gov/314/Jail.

The WCDC page matters because it confirms the county has one central detention site and that booking questions belong there before they ever become a court lookup.

Winona County does not appear to have an official inmate app. The county tools in the record set are the roster, the DOC search pages, and VINE, not a mobile shortcut.

How to Use the Winona County Inmate Roster

The official inmate roster is a PDF roster rather than a live search form. That means the fastest first step is to open the roster, use your browser's find function if needed, and check the current names and charge notes that are visible on the page. If the person is not on the roster, the next check is whether they transferred to DOC custody, were released, or were never booked in the county jail at all. The roster should be read alongside the jail mailing and phone rules, because custody and communication are tracked in different county pages.

1. Open the Winona County inmate roster PDF.
2. Search by name, then scan for the current custody line or hold reference.
3. Match any listed charge or statute to the court file if one exists.
4. If the person is gone from the jail roster, check DOC and VINE next.

Source: jail visiting and mailing procedures at winonacounty.gov/316/Inmate-Visiting-Mailing-Procedures.

The visiting and mailing page is the county's clearest companion to the roster because it tells you how to communicate once custody is confirmed.

Roster Search Fields

Winona County's roster is not a form with live filter fields, so the visible search logic is really a document scan. The useful roster fields are the inmate name, current charge, statute number, warrant reference, and any hold or supervision reference that appears in the PDF. Because the roster is a county-generated document, the exact visible columns can shift over time, but the verified content is still enough to identify the person and connect them to a court case or a warrant note. That is why the roster is best used as a current-status snapshot instead of a complete case history.

What an Inmate Profile Shows

Because the roster is published as a PDF, the closest thing to a profile is the line or row that appears for each person. The verified PDF snippets show names, current charges, statute references, warrant references, issuing-jurisdiction references, and supervision or hold references where they are present. That makes the roster useful for custody confirmation, but it is not the same as a full criminal case file or a sentencing record. If the person has already been charged, the roster is the starting point and the court file is the follow-up.

Winona County Jail Facilities

Official Winona County sources identify one county detention facility for inmate lookup, the Winona County Detention Center. The jail page lists the new WCDC capacity as 53 cells and 80 beds. The jail also links the roster, inmate visiting and mailing procedures, and public fingerprinting booking information from the same page. When a person leaves county custody, the relevant lookup shifts to the DOC locator or VINE rather than a county jail facility.

Booking Process in Winona County

The booking chain starts with arrest and intake at WCDC. Once the person is booked, the jail can publish a current custody line, a hold, or a charge note before the district court record is finished. The county does not treat that as the final case history. It is simply the first public custody snapshot. If the person has a first appearance or bond hearing, the district court calendar and the case file become the next places to look.

For people trying to follow a booking into court, the practical order is arrest, intake, roster, charge filing, and then hearing. That order matters because the jail roster can show someone who has already been moved or released, while the case record can show charges that have not yet resulted in a conviction. For a related charge search, use court charge records.

Visitation Hours and Rules

Winona County publishes mail and phone rules online, but it does not publish a full public visitation schedule in the official source set reviewed here. That means the safest way to plan a visit is to call WCDC or the sheriff office for the current schedule before you travel. The county's published communication rules do make one thing clear: mail and phone contact are controlled separately from the roster, and the roster itself will not tell you how to reach the person.

How to Contact an Inmate

Winona County says inmate calls are handled through Reliance Telephone. Calls are collect and are monitored and recorded unless the call is to an attorney. The county also says staff do not pass personal messages to inmates, so family and friends need to use the approved calling and text process instead of calling the jail desk as if it were a messenger service. The inmate visiting and mailing page is the best source for the mailing format, and it confirms that personal calls are not transferred to inmates.

Source: jail visiting and mailing procedures at winonacounty.gov/316/Inmate-Visiting-Mailing-Procedures.

That page is the county's practical communication rulebook, which is why the roster should always be read together with the jail contact page.

County Jail vs. DOC Lookups

Winona County custody is only the first stop. If the person moves into state custody, the Minnesota DOC offender locator becomes the better lookup. If the person is a public-notification registrant, the DOC registrant search is another separate state tool. Neither one is a county jail roster, and neither one should be read as a Winona County booking list. They are separate systems for separate custody or notice questions.

Source: Minnesota DOC offender locator at coms.doc.state.mn.us/publicviewer/.

The DOC locator is what you check when the county roster no longer shows the person and the case has moved to state supervision or prison custody.

Source: Minnesota DOC public registrant search at coms.doc.state.mn.us/publicregistrantsearch.

That search is not an inmate roster, but it becomes useful when the person has left county custody and the public-notification system is the relevant state record instead.

Commissary and Inmate Funds

Official Winona County pages reviewed for this build do not publish a commissary vendor, money-deposit schedule, or deposit fee table. What the county does publish is enough to show that the jail uses controlled communication channels, with five free pre-determined texts per day to request funds and Reliance Telephone for calls. If you need the current deposit method, the WCDC or sheriff office is the right contact, because the roster itself does not tell you how money moves into an account. There is no official county app documented for adding funds or checking roster status.