Clare County Jail Releases
A person can leave the Clare County Jail in more than one way. Community release may follow bond, time served, the end of a jail sentence, dismissal, or another court-directed action. The jail may also turn the person over to the Michigan Department of Corrections, another county, federal authorities, or a different custodial agency. Only the first group describes a person going directly into the community. The second group describes a departure from the Clare jail while custody continues elsewhere.
The Clare County Sheriff’s Office operates the county jail and owns the physical booking and release information. A court order can explain why the jail was permitted or required to act, but it does not always show the moment the person crossed the facility threshold. The jail entry is the better source for the actual departure date and time. The court case adds the legal disposition, such as a bond event, dismissal, sentence, or commitment.
Leaving Clare County Jail does not always mean community release. A transfer keeps the person in custody under a new agency.
Confirm Clare County Jail Release
Clare County has no official online inmate roster, release archive, or 24-hour or 72-hour release list. Start with the control room for a current status question, then obtain a written record if documentary proof is needed. Ask whether the person remains confined. If not, ask which records channel holds the actual release entry and whether staff can identify a transfer destination. Phone information can be limited, so the written step matters.
A narrow sequence keeps the inquiry tied to the right custody system:
- Call the Clare County Jail control room at (989) 539-7166, extension 4238, and ask whether the named person is still held.
- Request the booking sheet and release entry through the Records Division or Clare County FOIA process.
- Check the matching case through MiCOURT Case Search and the proper local court.
- If the jail reports a transfer, switch to the receiving agency’s locator or records office.
The county release record should be compared with the Clare County courts route. The 80th District Court handles misdemeanors, bond matters, and early felony stages, while a felony bound over for final disposition belongs in the 55th Circuit Court record. Neither a closed case nor a sentence date alone proves the exact physical release time. For the full record path, use the Clare County released-inmates lookup.
Note: An absent name in an unofficial list can reflect a transfer, spelling issue, data delay, or release, so absence is not proof.
Clare Jail Release Records
A useful request identifies one booking and asks for specific fields. Give the person’s full name and date of birth. Add the approximate booking date, incident number, case number, or booking number when known. Ask for the booking sheet and release record rather than an arrest report alone. Clare County has not published a release-field dictionary, so request the facts in plain language and let the responsive record supply its actual terms.
The requested field set can include:
| Requested item | Question it helps answer |
|---|---|
| Actual release date and time | When Clare County Jail stopped holding the person |
| Release or disposition code | How the jail recorded the departure |
| Destination or receiving agency | Whether custody continued after the jail departure |
| Bond and charge entries | Which booking and case the release concerned |
| Court order or mittimus | What legal document supported the action, if kept with the booking |
| Booking photograph | The image tied to that booking, if held and disclosable |
The county FOIA form permits a copy, certified copy, inspection, or subscription request and offers pickup, onsite copying, mail, email, or county digital media as delivery choices. A requester may email the sheriff records contact at vanwagnerl@clareco.net or use FOIA@clareco.net. Mail goes to Clare County FOIA Coordinator, 225 West Main Street, P.O. Box 438, Harrison, MI 48625. Fax requests may go to (989) 539-2588.
The county generally must issue its response within five business days and may take one ten-business-day extension. That is the response period, not a promise that the full file arrives within five days. Fees depend on the work and current procedures. No universal flat booking or photo fee was verified. The form describes a first-$20 waiver for a qualifying indigent requester who meets its conditions, and the county may send an itemized estimate for other costs.
Clare County Jail Contacts
The jail and sheriff records contacts serve different needs. The control room is the immediate route for a current confinement question. The records front office handles directions for obtaining a record, while the county FOIA coordinator supplies the formal written channel. Calling before an in-person trip is wise because published county office hours do not establish when jail staff can discuss a particular record.
Clare County Jail
255 West Main Street
Harrison, MI 48625
Main: (989) 539-7166
Control room: extension 4238
Records front office: extension 4220
County office hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Jail Administrator Lt. Bryan Dunn is listed at extension 4249 and dunnb@clareco.net. Assistant Jail Administrator Sgt. Aaron Houle is listed at extension 4244 and houlea@clareco.net. Those contacts come from the official sheriff page. Routine release confirmation should still start with the control room or records channel rather than assuming an administrator personally handles every request.
Clare County Jail Custody
The Clare County Jail is a county jail operated by the Clare County Sheriff’s Office. It serves the local detention function for people awaiting court action and people serving jail custody. Sheriff materials also acknowledge federal-prisoner duties, but that does not make the building a federal prison. No official source established a current rated capacity, full contracting-agency list, or reliable population breakdown, so unsupported commercial figures should not be used.
The sheriff page also lists Express Account for commissary and HomeWAV for current-custody calls or video. These vendor accounts support services for people in custody. They are not locators and cannot prove that a person remains held or has been released. An account that still exists after a transfer or release is not a custody record.
- Community release
- The person leaves the jail without an immediate handoff to another custodial agency.
- Transfer
- The person leaves Clare County custody but enters or remains in another agency’s custody.
- Commitment
- A court-directed move into a corrections system, such as MDOC, after sentence.
- Discharge
- The end of MDOC jurisdiction on a state sentence, which is different from leaving the county jail.
Clare Jail Transfers to MDOC
A commitment to MDOC is a release from Clare County Jail custody only in the narrow facility sense. It is not release into the community. After MDOC accepts and enters the person, the correct public locator is the Offender Tracking Information System, or OTIS. County-jail-only sentences do not appear there, so the jail must first identify the custody path.
Search OTIS by MDOC number when possible. Otherwise use the name and compare identifiers and sentence facts. “Earliest Release Date” marks the point when the Michigan Parole Board first has jurisdiction; it is not a promised departure date. “Date Paroled” is the stronger indicator that a person left a prison or camp or moved into parole status from nonsecure supervision. “Maximum Discharge” marks the sentence endpoint under MDOC’s terms, subject to other legal authority.
If OTIS shows parole or another Clare supervision entry, the Clare County Parole/Probation office is at 225 West Main Street, P.O. Box 438, Harrison, MI 48625, and can be reached at (989) 539-2458. State parole remains MDOC supervision after prison release. It should not be confused with community release from a jail-only booking or with probation handled by the local court.
Clare Jail Federal Transfers
Federal-prisoner duties mentioned in sheriff materials require a careful custody distinction. A person held locally for the U.S. Marshals Service may be a federal pretrial detainee or may be awaiting placement. That person may not yet have a Bureau of Prisons number or designation. A blank BOP search therefore cannot establish that the person was released from federal custody or entered the community.
For a federal pretrial case, begin with the federal docket through PACER and review release, detention, sentence, commitment, or transfer orders. The physical facility or the appropriate U.S. Marshals context may then help clarify custody. There is no public USMS release locator equal to the BOP search, and a legal order may precede the actual physical departure.
The BOP Inmate Locator is appropriate after federal designation or for a sentenced federal custody record. “Released” or “Not in BOP Custody” means the person is outside BOP custody, not necessarily free of all custody or supervision. Another local, state, immigration, or federal authority could still be involved. The Clare jail record remains necessary to prove what happened at this facility.
Clare Jail Release Transit
Clare County publishes no routine jail release hour, physical exit door, family waiting area, or jail-coordinated ride plan. Release processing can depend on court paperwork, bond completion, and other holds. Call before driving to Harrison, and confirm both the time and the pickup point with jail staff. The lack of a published routine is important because a court action does not reveal when facility processing will finish.
Clare County Transit Corporation provides countywide demand-response, curb-to-curb transportation rather than a fixed jail route. Riders are asked to call dispatch at (989) 539-1473 at least 24 hours ahead. Same-day trips depend on bus availability, and Saturday service requires advance reservation. Dispatch hours are listed as 5:30 a.m. to 7:15 p.m.
No source says the jail books or guarantees a transit pickup. A released person or family must coordinate with transit and separately verify the exact release point with the jail. The service can be useful, but the reservation and custody processes remain independent.
Unknown Clare Jail Release Details
Several practical facts remain unpublished. No official source states a weekend or holiday release procedure, property-return process, gate money policy, booking or pay-to-stay collection at release, local jail good-time calculation, ICE detainer workflow, release-feed retention period, or booking-photo publication policy. Those details must not be inferred from another Michigan county or from a commercial directory.
Ask the jail about the point that affects the planned pickup or record request. If immigration custody may follow, note that a release from county charges can still lead to an ICE handoff. The ICE Online Detainee Locator is for current immigration detention and is not a historical release archive. A missing ICE result can reflect a name or country mismatch, transfer, lag, removal, restriction, or release. It does not supply a definite answer on its own.
Clare-specific confirmation stays simple in principle: identify the agency that last held the person, obtain that agency’s release or transfer record, and compare the legal order. When the jail transferred the person, continue with the receiving agency. When the jail released the person to the community, the county booking and release record is the primary facility evidence.