Lookup FDC Philadelphia Inmates

FDC Philadelphia Overview

Federal Detention Center Philadelphia is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It is an administrative security federal detention center at 700 Arch Street in Philadelphia. The facility holds male and female federal detainees, including pretrial defendants, short-sentence prisoners, and people in transfer status. It is separate from the Philadelphia Department of Prisons facilities on State Road.

This distinction matters. A person held at CFCF, DC, PICC, Riverside, or ASD is searched through the Philadelphia Incarcerated Person Locator. A person held at FDC Philadelphia is searched through the BOP Inmate Locator. Federal pretrial custody can also involve the U.S. Marshals Service before sentencing, but the public federal inmate search route is BOP, not PDP.

The official BOP facility page gives the address, phone, fax, email, and local institution materials.

The BOP page should be used for federal facility contact and visiting documents, while local jail questions should stay with PDP.

FDC Philadelphia Population

The April 2024 PREA audit identified FDC Philadelphia's designed facility capacity as 1,123. The same audit listed a current population of 994 and a 12-month average daily population of 948. Those figures are federal audit figures and should not be mixed with the Philadelphia jail population report, which covers PDP custody.

Federal counts can change with court calendars, sentencing, transfers, designation decisions, and agency movements. The BOP locator is used for a specific person, while the PREA audit is a dated population and capacity source.

Federal Inmate Lookup

Use the BOP Inmate Locator for people in FDC Philadelphia. The BOP locator can search by federal register number or by name. A register-number search is the cleaner route when known. Name searches can be affected by spelling, aliases, age, release history, and common names.

1. Open the BOP Inmate Locator, not the Philadelphia jail locator.
2. Search by BOP register number if it is known.
3. If no number is known, search by name and narrow with age or other available fields.
4. Confirm whether the result's location is FDC Philadelphia or another federal location.

BOP profiles do not publish public federal mugshots. They also do not replace federal court dockets. For charges and case events, use federal court records or the court of record. For local Philadelphia custody, use PDP. For immigration custody, use ICE. For victim custody updates, Pennsylvania VINE is helpful for state and local matters, but federal custody has its own systems.

The BOP locator is the correct public search route for FDC Philadelphia.

Use BOP search results to confirm federal location before contacting the Arch Street facility.

FDC Philadelphia Contact

The official BOP page lists FDC Philadelphia's public phone, fax, and executive assistant email. Use these federal contacts for facility-level questions that BOP will answer. Do not call PDP Classification for a person shown in BOP custody, and do not send federal trust-fund money to a PDP facility address.

Federal pretrial custody in the region may also involve the U.S. Marshals Service. The Eastern District of Pennsylvania headquarters is at the James A. Byrne United States Courthouse, 601 Market Street, Room 2110, Philadelphia, PA 19106-1728, with public hours listed as 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and phone (215) 597-7272 in the research file.

FDC Philadelphia Visiting

Visiting at FDC Philadelphia follows federal rules and the local BOP visiting supplement. BOP says visitors must be approved and placed on the inmate's visiting list. That is different from simply finding a person in the locator. A federal detainee's case status, housing status, discipline, security needs, or transfer can affect whether a visit occurs.

Visitors should expect identity checks, security screening, dress and property limits, and local institution rules. A federal visit should be confirmed through BOP sources rather than through Philadelphia County jail pages.

FDC Philadelphia Mail and Money

Mail and funds for federal prisoners follow BOP rules. Money for a federal inmate goes through BOP trust-fund channels, not to the FDC Philadelphia street address and not to a PDP commissary service. The official FDC page and BOP money instructions should be checked before sending funds. If a person is only in local PDP custody, do not use BOP trust-fund routes.

The FDC Philadelphia commissary list was updated June 12, 2026 in the research source inventory, but commissary availability and spending limits can change. Treat lists as facility documents to check, not permanent guarantees.

Federal Court Custody

FDC Philadelphia can hold federal pretrial defendants, short-sentence prisoners, and people being transferred. Federal court cases are not searched through Pennsylvania UJS Case Search. The U.S. Marshals Service may be involved with federal pretrial transport and custody before sentencing, while BOP manages federal detention and post-sentence custody within its system.

Immigration custody is also separate. ICE's Online Detainee Locator can locate people currently held by ICE using A-number and country of birth, or biographical data. The research did not confirm a dedicated ICE detention facility in Philadelphia County, so immigration custody should not be treated as an FDC Philadelphia fact unless the federal or ICE record shows it.

BOP register number

The federal identifier used for BOP inmate searches.

Administrative security

A federal facility type that can hold people with different legal statuses and movement needs.

Transfer status

Federal custody while a person is being moved, designated, or processed between locations.

FDC and Local Jail Differences

FDC Philadelphia should not be merged with the Philadelphia County jail pages. PDP houses local city jail custody on State Road, including CFCF, DC, PICC, Riverside, and ASD. FDC Philadelphia is a federal facility downtown. The correct search tool, visitor approval process, money route, court record path, and mugshot rule are different.

People can move between systems only when a lawful custody process supports it, such as a federal hold, writ, transfer, sentence, or release to another agency. A missing PDP locator result does not prove federal custody. Search BOP and, when appropriate, contact the federal court, defense counsel, or Marshals channel for federal pretrial context.