Washington County PA Correctional Facility

The Washington County Correctional Facility at 100 West Cherry Avenue in Washington, Pennsylvania — roughly 25 miles south of Pittsburgh — is the main county jail for Washington County, PA. Operated under the Washington County Prison Board's governance, the facility holds pretrial detainees on state and county charges, people serving Pennsylvania county sentences (up to two years less one day), and various state and federal holds. Family-contact infrastructure at Washington County runs primarily through IC Solutions (ICSolutions) rather than Securus — a distinction that catches many families off guard because most Pennsylvania county prisons have moved to Securus. Washington County offers three visitation formats through IC Solutions' "The Visitor" system: OFFSITE video, FACE-TO-FACE, and CONTACT visitation, with all visitors required to register at no cost at icsolutions.com. This guide walks through the current visitation model, mail, deposits, phone, and Washington County's court process.

About the Washington County Correctional Facility

Washington County sits in the southwestern Pennsylvania coal-and-industrial region, south of Pittsburgh, with the city of Washington as the county seat and additional communities including Canonsburg, McMurray, and Peters Township within its boundaries. The Correctional Facility on West Cherry Avenue serves as the main jail for the county under the Washington County Prison Board's governance — the Board comprising the county's Common Pleas judges, District Attorney, county commissioners, and appointed members.

Every inmate has a booking or inmate ID assigned at intake. That number, plus the full legal name used at booking, is required on every letter, deposit, video-visit registration, and IC Solutions phone-account setup. Confirm current custody status through the Washington County Correctional Facility page or on AllRecentArrests.us before mailing or planning a visit.

Visitation at Washington County: three formats through IC Solutions

Washington County uses IC Solutions' "The Visitor" video-visitation and visit-management system, which is distinct from the Securus systems that many other Pennsylvania county prisons use. The county offers three visitation formats:

• OFFSITE video visitation — friends and family conduct video visits from home through IC Solutions' online platform. Standard per-minute charges apply.
• FACE-TO-FACE visitation — on-site visits at the facility, typically conducted through a partition or glass in a designated visiting area.
• CONTACT visitation — on-site contact visits in a shared visiting room, typically available to specific classifications and by special approval.

All visitors, regardless of format, must register on IC Solutions' platform at icsolutions.com at no cost to participate. Registration includes visitor identity verification and background screening. Once registered and approved, visitors can schedule and conduct visits in the applicable formats. Confirm the current schedule and specific format eligibility for your loved one by calling the facility at (724) 228-6845 — contact-visit eligibility in particular varies with the inmate's classification and disciplinary history.

Mail to a Washington County Correctional Facility inmate

Personal mail for Washington County Correctional Facility inmates goes to Inmate Name and Booking Number, Washington County Correctional Facility, 100 West Cherry Avenue, Washington, PA 15301. Include your full return address. Confirm the current mail policy on the county correctional facility page before sending, particularly if the county has moved to a scanning-vendor model for personal mail — many Pennsylvania county prisons have shifted personal mail off-site to scanning services in recent years.

Follow standard prohibited-items rules: no cash, personal checks, stamps, stickers, glitter, glue, tape, staples, paperclips, Polaroids, hardcover books, musical or embellished cards, or anything with electronics. Legal mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence. Our how to send mail to an inmate covers the format.

IC Solutions phone service and deposits

IC Solutions handles Washington County's inmate phone service and communications infrastructure. Family members set up prepaid accounts through IC Solutions' online portal at icsolutions.com and register the phone numbers the inmate will call. Standard per-minute rates apply. IC Solutions' single-account model covers both video visits and phone-account funding, so families who register for video visitation can typically fund phone calls through the same account.

Deposits for Washington County Correctional Facility inmate commissary accounts run through the county's contracted deposit vendor. Confirm the current deposit routing on the county correctional facility page before sending, since jail deposit vendors change with contracts. Standard per-transaction fees apply. Our overviews of how to send money to an inmate and how to call an inmate cover the general county-jail model.

Court dates, bond, and release in Washington County

Pennsylvania criminal cases in Washington County are handled through the Washington County Court of Common Pleas, with case records searchable through the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania's UJS Portal. Bond decisions in Pennsylvania can be handled through cash bail, unsecured bail, or release on recognizance under the state's risk-assessment-based model. If your loved one has been arrested in Washington County, look them up on the county lookup and use the UJS Portal to check case status.

SCI Fayette and other nearby state-prison context

Washington County sits in southwestern Pennsylvania in the same regional cluster as SCI Fayette, a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections state prison in nearby LaBelle. If your loved one is convicted in Washington County of a felony and sentenced to more than two years less one day, he may transfer to SCI Fayette or another PA DOC state facility depending on classification. That handoff means new inmate ID, new mail routing (typically through Smart Communications' Tampa scanning center for many PA DOC facilities), JPay for deposits, and ViaPath for phone service.

A small facility carrying a wide range of functions

Washington County was designed for 258 people and rated for 407 — a rating 58% above the design figure — and its peak of 371 sat close to that rating. What is unusual is the range: for a facility this size the census recorded medical and mental health designations, reception, work release, juvenile holding and protective custody. Small jails more often transfer those needs out. Carrying them in-house means fewer moves, which for a family usually means fewer surprises about where someone is.

How much room the Washington County Correctional Facility has

The federal jail census gives three different capacity figures for the Washington County Correctional Facility, and the gaps between them are the useful part. In its 2019 count the facility had a design capacity of 258 and a rated capacity of 407. Its highest population during that reporting year was 371. The design figure is what the building was drawn for, the rated figure is what the jurisdiction says it can hold, and the peak is what actually happened.

A jail whose peak exceeds its design capacity is common and is not on its own a sign of a crisis, but it explains conditions families notice without being given a reason: temporary bunks in dayrooms, slower medical and dental response, and visits that get shortened or cancelled when the building is under pressure.

The same count recorded 294 adult men and 44 adult women held at the facility. A jail holding both means separate housing, and often separate visiting and program schedules, inside one building — which is a common reason two people booked the same day end up on different routines.

These are census figures for 2019, so they describe that year rather than today. Treat them as the scale of the facility and confirm anything current with the sheriff's office.

Who was held at the Washington County Correctional Facility

On the day of the 2019 federal jail census, the Washington County Correctional Facility held 338 adults: 294 men and 44 women.

Women were 13% of that count. Jails typically run separate housing for men and women, and the smaller side of the population often means fewer program places, fewer visiting slots and less movement — a practical disadvantage that rarely gets stated anywhere.

The census also recorded this as a facility that holds people beyond 72 hours, rather than a short-term lockup that transfers everyone onward almost immediately. That matters for planning: it means someone can serve a full short sentence here, and that mail, deposits and visiting are worth setting up rather than waiting out.

These are census figures for a single reporting year and are now several years old. Treat the split as the shape of the population rather than a current count.

How the Washington County Correctional Facility compares with other jails in Pennsylvania

The 2019 federal jail census counted 72 jails in Pennsylvania. Ranked by rated capacity, the Washington County Correctional Facility was the 22nd largest of them, at 407 beds.

That places it mid-sized for the state: large enough to run formal visiting and classification systems, small enough that the published procedure and the actual practice can differ. Calling ahead is worth more here than at either extreme.

This ranking covers only the jails the census counted, and reflects that one reporting year. It is a guide to scale, not a current league table.

What the Washington County Correctional Facility is set up to do

The federal jail census records each facility's designated functions — the roles it is set up and authorised to perform. In its 2019 count, the Washington County Correctional Facility was recorded as holding adults awaiting trial or serving a sentence, holding people awaiting return to probation or parole custody, running a work release program, acting as a reception or intake centre for other facilities, holding juveniles, operating as a dedicated medical facility, operating as a dedicated mental health facility and holding people in protective custody.

These designations come from the 2019 census, so treat them as the facility's established role rather than a current service list.

How the Washington County Correctional Facility is inspected

Every county correctional institution in Pennsylvania is inspected by the Department of Corrections' Office of County Inspections and Services, which runs an independent statewide field inspection programme covering written policies, the documentation behind them, and the physical plant. The requirement comes from 37 Pa. Code Chapter 95.

• A facility is inspected at least every 12 months, and at most every 24 months.
• The regulations run to 48 essential standards and 94 non-essential standards.
• A violation of an essential standard produces a citation; a non-essential one produces a deficiency.

Full compliance waives the next annual inspection and moves a jail to a two-yearly cycle, so the inspection interval itself is a signal about past performance.

This matters more than most oversight machinery, because an inspection report is a document you can ask for. If you have a concern about conditions that the jail itself will not address — sanitation, medical access, overcrowding, safety — asking whether the facility's most recent inspection raised it, and requesting that report, is a concrete step that carries more weight than a phone complaint. Reports are generally public records.

Emergencies, avoiding scams, and your first steps

For urgent family emergencies such as a death, serious illness, or birth, call the Washington County Correctional Facility at (724) 228-6845 with the inmate's name and booking number and ask that a chaplain or unit staff relay the message. If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside, contact the Warden's office directly and keep a written record of who you spoke with and when.

Be cautious about paying third-party sites — the county correctional facility page, IC Solutions (icsolutions.com) for video visits and phone service, and the county's contracted deposit vendor are the authoritative and only fully reliable channels. If someone you love has just been booked into the Washington County Correctional Facility, focus first on the essentials: confirm booking through the county page and note the booking number, register at no cost on icsolutions.com to enable video visits and phone service, choose your preferred visitation format (offsite video, face-to-face, or contact) based on your loved one's eligibility, fund an initial deposit through the county's contracted vendor, and mail to 100 West Cherry Avenue with legal mail clearly marked. Look up the case number on the UJS Portal.

Why IC Solutions matters for cross-facility comparison

Because most Pennsylvania county prisons have contracts with Securus for phone and messaging, families with prior experience at a Securus-contracted county jail may need to start fresh at Washington County by opening an IC Solutions account. Your existing Securus AdvanceConnect balance from another facility does not transfer to Washington County's IC Solutions setup, and video-visit registration at other facilities does not carry over. Take that setup step early: register at icsolutions.com, verify your account, and be ready to schedule visits and fund phone service through IC Solutions rather than trying to route through a Securus account that won't work here.

Southwestern PA travel and coal-country context

Washington County lies south of Pittsburgh along the I-79 corridor, and the Correctional Facility at 100 West Cherry Avenue in the city of Washington is accessible from Pittsburgh (about 45 minutes) and from communities along US-19 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The county has deep roots in the southwestern PA coal and industrial heritage, and the modern service economy has partially replaced heavy industry. That geographic and economic context shapes the population mix at the jail without meaningfully changing the family-facing procedures.

Reusing IC Solutions accounts across facilities

If you've already registered an IC Solutions account for another facility, log in with those credentials and add Washington County Correctional Facility as a new facility rather than creating a fresh account. The video-visit and phone-account infrastructure is the same across ICSolutions-contracted facilities, so a single account gives you access across the ICSolutions network. That said, verify facility-specific rules for Washington County before scheduling since visitation formats and available services can vary by facility.

Records requests and public transparency in Washington County PA

Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law gives residents access to jail-operations records, incident reports, and administrative documents through the county's open-records officer. If you need specific records related to an incident that occurred while your loved one was in custody, submit a written Right-to-Know request through the Washington County official-request process; responses can take up to five business days for standard requests and longer for records requiring redaction. Keep copies of your request and any responses for follow-up if the records are incomplete or contested.