Track Down Bexar County Mugshots at No Cost

Perform a Bexar County mugshot search today to see available detainee photos in the county. These photos are typically found online or by requests for free— all thanks to the Texas Public Information Act (PIA).

Whether you’re trying to see records of individuals in custody or want to be more aware about public safety, this brief resource lays out tools and processes that will help you find mugshots within Bexar County, Texas.

Where Can Mugshots Be Located for Free?

Mugshots — photos of individuals usually found alongside their criminal records — can often be obtained by browsing through jail rosters or submitting formal requests.

When searching for mugshots in Bexar County, it’s best to start with the official custodian of bookings and detainee records — the sheriff’s office. You can also refer to the Bexar County Public Information Office, which is responsible for the county’s media.¹ Then, for newer records or more specific searches, you can inquire with the local police departments within the county.

Aside from individuals held in county jails, state and federal prisoners also get their pictures taken. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Department of Public Safety are helpful if you’re looking for state offender photos. At the federal level, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is the agency responsible for the correctional facilities.

The succeeding section lays out how you can obtain mugshots from county-level departments.

How To Find Bexar County Mugshots Without Fees

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t post any inmate photos on their online resources despite keeping booking and release reports available for interested parties to view.²

You can request mugshots for free by emailing [email protected] though. Make sure to type in the incarcerated individual’s details (full name, System ID number, or birthday) in the request. You can find these details on the arrest database handled by the Bexar County Central Magistrate.

You can also use the same email address if you’d like to have a full incident report or you can through GovQA. This method is free but requires you to create an account before you can place a request. You’re encouraged to provide the case number and names of the involved people but they’re not required.

If you have other questions, feel free to call the sheriff’s Central Records Office at (210.335.6201) or visit them in person.

Bexar County Sheriff’s Office
200 North Comal Street
San Antonio, TX 78207

The Bexar County Public Information Office is another department you can look at when finding mugshots.¹ This office is responsible for the press releases within the county government.

With that said, you can look for news about arrests in their archive and you might just see an article accompanied by a photo of the offender. However, not all arrest articles would contain one—especially that of juveniles.

It is also worthy to point out that this archive isn’t always up to date. Nonetheless, it’s a helpful supplementary resource, especially if you’re not looking for any specific person.

You can use other third party services, like VINELink, too to see information about people who committed crimes in Texas.

Offender Support Programs: Fund Accounts, Visitation & More

Support from friends and family is important for jailed individuals’ rehabilitation journey. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office offers inmates services for this purpose — including account funding, bail posting, visitation and other contact methods.

You can pay for cash and personal bonds only by money orders or cashier’s checks.⁵ For more information, call (210.335.6201). Additionally, you can check out the arrest lookup overview in Bexar County for the bail process.

You can also support individuals in custody by sending them money via mail, by calling (866.345.1884), online via Access Corrections, or in person. The inmates can use these funds for email or commissary use but you can also send packages directly via Access SecurePak.

Maintaining connection with the incarcerated individual is also important. You can contact them through different ways—by mail, email, and visitation.

Inmates may receive unlimited letters as long as they don’t contain items or information that aren’t allowed. They have an option to send mails and emails as well. For emails, they’d need to buy credits for .25¢ per message.⁶

For visits, you must schedule an appointment online before anything else. Generally, personal visits are allowed from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays and 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays.⁷

View Mugshots via City Police Departments Within Bexar County TX

Sometimes, a record won’t appear through county-level departments because it is a recent incident. City police departments hold records of said newer incidents and you can get them by visiting their respective websites or offices. This applies to mugshots as well.

San Antonio is by far the largest city within Bexar County. The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) dedicates a page for the most wanted individuals in the city where you can view police photographs, along with their name, System Identification (SID) number, warrants, and the crimes they committed.⁸

A complete incident/offense report can also be requested from the SAPD online or manually by mail or in person. You must complete a police report request form for the manual requests then drop by or send it to the SAPD. The first 50 pages of the report costs $0.10 per page.

San Antonio Police
Department Records Office
315 South Santa Rosa,
San Antonio, Texas 78207

Covering a large city, the SAPD has six substations. You can opt to contact these stations directly for information as well. Check out the Bexar County public data lookup tutorial for their compiled contact information.

(Note: The mentioned resource also details processes about obtaining other criminal, vital, and land records.)

If the person you’re looking for is arrested by a different city, then you might want to check out and contact that police department directly.

The police departments of other larger cities in Bexar County don’t show mugshots online. However, you can still request for reports from their respective records sections. Here’s their contact information:

Furthermore, for the cities not listed on this table, search ‘[city name] Police Department Office Bexar County,’ or something similar.

The county and city departments are helpful when locating individuals within Bexar County. However, for prisoners held by the state, you might want to check state departments instead. The following section focuses on the state and federal departments that house prisoners and manage their records.

How To Look Up State & Federal Prison Mugshots (Texas)

State prisoner images can be viewed via Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and Department of Public Safety (TDPS).

The repositories where mugshots are available are both of sexual offenders. The TDCJ lets you view photos of sex predators who escaped supervision while TDPS manages the sexual offender registry in the state.⁹

You can view essentially the same information from the two resources: the person’s name, SID number, birthday, age, address, physical description, and offense history. However, the search tool from the TDCJ only displays information of absconders whereas the TDPS holds data of every registered sex predator in the state. The mugshots are also updated sometimes in the registry and they keep the previous photos online for viewing.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (TDPS) also gives you an option to view the top ten most wanted sex offenders in the state.¹⁰

Sometimes, a person commits a federal offense and in such cases, they are held in facilities overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). You can look up federal prisoners via their locator. This provides you with details such as the inmate’s name, age, sex, race, BOP number, and custody status, but not mugshots.

Obtaining all the aforementioned records is made possible by the Texas Public Information Act (PIA), a state law that takes after the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).^{11, 12} However, these shouldn’t be used in any discriminatory or illegal manner as this violates the standards set by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Equipped with knowledge of the processes involved in a Bexar County mugshot search, you can efficiently locate offender records and stay informed about the safety of your community.