Erie County Holding Center (ECHC) Inmate Search

The Erie County Holding Center (ECHC) is in downtown Buffalo, NY, and is New York State’s second largest minimum-security holding facility, capable of housing inmates who are awaiting trial. Originally built in the late 1800s utilizing Graystone building brick, the holding center Jail could house up to 30 prisoners. The jail was and still is, supervised by the Erie County Sheriff’s Department since its inception.

Many prestigious people oversaw the facility and held the title of Sheriff of Erie County. Among them were Wray S. Littlefield, a War of 1812 veteran and the first Sheriff to have jurisdiction of the facility. Brigadier General Timothy Hopkins also a war of 1812 veteran, Town Supervisor and Assemblyman served between 1847 - 1849 as well as President Grover Cleveland, whose political career began as Sheriff of Erie County, NY.

In 1937, the Graystone building was demolished with construction beginning on a new modern-day jail that would house many more inmates. The newly built Jail opened a year later, in 1938 as one of the best in the country. The Erie County Holding Center today continues to be at the forefront of state-of-the-art infrastructural facilities utilizing smart technologies with a combination of open bays, pods, and traditional linear cells. These technologies incorporate many efficient management systems, advanced integrated security, temperate and access controls, video and protective surveillances among many others that assist with operational efficiencies.

Today, the Jail Management Division of the Sheriff’s Department annually administers to approximately 20,000 inmates from neighboring municipalities, the Buffalo Police Department and those who are remanded to the custody of the Sheriff’s department for housing at the Erie County Holding Center. These include persons of any gender, adults, youths who are adjudicated as an adult, those that are sentenced, non-arraigned, non-sentenced, and in some cases are federal inmates.

Arrivals to the holding center occur daily. Many inmates stay at the facility for a short period of time and then they are released either by posting bail, supervised by a probations officer or on their own recognizance with a future court appearance. Nonetheless, most inmates stay at the holding center on average two years or less. However; at any given time, should there be an overflow of inmates at Erie County Holding Center, they will be housed at the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden, NY.

In addition to housing inmates, tours of the facility are conducted on a regular basis by the Jail Management Division for high school students, at-risk teenagers, college students majoring in criminal justice and several police academy students.