Find Venango County Inmates

Venango County Jail Roster Overview

The local jail facility is Venango County Prison. It houses people who require confinement while awaiting adjudication or serving a county sentence. The official prison page names Warden Jason Batykefer and Deputy Warden Anthony Faraone, and gives the prison address as 1186 Elk Street, Franklin, PA 16323. The prison phone number is 814-432-9629 and the fax number is 814-432-9653.

No official Venango County public jail-roster search page was found in the county sources reviewed. That matters because a third-party inmate list should not be treated as the county's custody record. The county site documents prison information, video visitation, mail, finances, commissary, VINE, and Pennsylvania DOC lookup resources, but it does not show a county-hosted search form for current jail residents.

The official Venango County Prison page is the starting point for local custody contacts and prison services.

The prison page anchors the inmate-record process locally because it identifies the county facility rather than a statewide prison or court-only database.

How to Check Custody Status

Because Venango County does not publish a confirmed online roster, the lookup process is a fallback chain. Start with the most direct source for the type of custody involved. A person held before trial or serving a county sentence is a county prison question. A person sentenced to state custody or on state parole is a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections question. A victim or family member who needs notification can use VINE.

1. Call Venango County Prison at 814-432-9629 for current county custody questions.
2. Use Pennsylvania VINE at vinelink.vineapps.com/state/PA/ENGLISH for custody and case notification.
3. Use the PA DOC inmate and parolee locator for state-sentenced inmates and parolees, not county jail residents.
4. Search UJS or PAeDocket for the related criminal, traffic, or Magisterial District Court docket when charges, bail, or hearing dates are the real question.
5. Contact the Venango County Sheriff at 814-432-9565 when the question involves prisoner transport, warrants, or sheriff service duties rather than housing details.

Inmate Search Fields

The county's documented online search-like tool for jail residents is the JailCanteen commissary storefront, but that storefront is not a custody roster. It begins with a resident last name or ID so a user can shop for an already confirmed resident. Use it only after confirming the person is housed at Venango County Prison.

The Venango JailCanteen storefront is the county-linked commissary path for resident shopping.

The storefront is useful for commissary support, but it should not replace a call to the prison for custody confirmation.

Inmate Profile Field Inventory

A sample Venango County inmate profile inventory is not available from an official public roster because no official public roster was located. The safer record inventory separates confirmed local custody sources from related court and state fields. Do not assume that a Venango inmate profile will show a mugshot, pod, projected release date, or booking number unless the prison or a court record actually provides it.

Venango County Prison Contact

Venango County Prison is close to the courthouse complex in Franklin. The courthouse, sheriff, Clerk of Courts, and Court of Common Pleas are nearby but serve different record purposes. Jail staff handle custody, mail, phone, visitation, and inmate finance questions. Court offices handle dockets, charges, bail records, sentencing orders, certified copies, and case files.

Sheriff Eric Foy's office performs courthouse and courtroom security, civil process, warrant service, PFA service and enforcement, prisoner transport, mental-health transport by court order, sheriff sales, firearms licensing background checks, and related public safety duties. The sheriff is a custody-adjacent contact for transport and warrants, but the prison is the direct housing contact.

Booking Charges and Court Dockets

Booking and custody do not always answer the same question as a court docket. In Venango County, criminal and many traffic or summary matters may begin at a Magisterial District Court. The public docket may show the complaint, OTN, citation number, charges, plea, hearing dates, bail events, disposition, and financial obligations. More serious criminal matters that move beyond the district court route to the Court of Common Pleas and the Clerk of Courts.

For court-case research, use UJS public docket sheets or PAeDocket. PAeDocket supports searches by case number, participant name, organization name, offense tracking number, police incident or complaint number, and state ID. Public web docket sheets are useful, but they are not criminal-history background checks and recent filing-office entries may not appear immediately.

The county's new commitments page explains local property limits for people entering the jail.

Those intake rules are separate from court docket fields, but they are often the first practical issue when a person is newly committed.

Video Visitation Rules

Venango County identifies SmartInmate by Smart Communications as the video visitation platform. Family and friends create an account at SmartInmate.com or call customer care at 1-727-349-1561 for setup help. Video visitation is a privilege. The county says there is a set rate per video visit paid by the approved visitor, but the exact rate is not published on the county page.

The county's video visitation page provides the SmartInmate setup and rule summary.

The visitation rules are operational rules, not court access rules, so scheduling or approval questions should go through the prison process.

How to Contact an Inmate

Mail must be sent through the U.S. Postal Service and must include a complete return address with the sender's name. The county's mail format is the inmate's name, Venango County Prison, 1186 Elk Street, Franklin, PA 16323. Correspondence cannot be dropped off. Mail is searched for unauthorized items before delivery to the inmate.

Venango County lists prohibited mail items including crayons, gel pens, glitter, music cards, stickers, cash, newspaper clippings or photocopies, books with violence or gang affiliation, and hardback books. Inmates may place outside calls through Smart Communications. Family and friends setting up Prepaid Collect or PIN Debit accounts use SmartInmate.com or call 1-727-349-1561.

The official contacting an inmate page documents the mail format and Smart Communications phone setup.

Using the county's address format reduces returned mail and helps keep communication separate from court-record requests.

Commissary and Inmate Funds

Venango County's inmate-finances page gives three deposit options: money orders made payable to the inmate and received through the mail, internet deposits through JailATM, and cash inserted into the kiosk located in the jail lobby. The prison also warns that if money is sent to an inmate who owes money to the prison, up to 60% of the money sent can be deducted to offset the amount owed.

The JailCanteen/Oasis commissary storefront lists categories such as food and drink, candy and pastry, chips and snacks, beverages, clothing, hygiene, miscellaneous, postal, seasonal baskets, and new items. The store says to allow up to three weeks for delivery. New commitment rules say commissary items must be compatible with items sold in the Venango County Prison commissary, not excessive in quantity, and sealed or unopened.

The official inmate finances page explains deposit methods and the county's debt-offset warning.

Finance rules affect families directly because a deposit may not become fully available for commissary if the inmate owes prison debt.