Facility record · Texas
Sanchez State Jail
El Paso · El Paso County
- SecurityMaximum
- Population833
- Occupancy76%
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Sanchez State Jail is a state prison in El Paso, El Paso County, Texas. It has a rated capacity of 1,100 and a reported population of 833 — about 76% occupancy, as recorded in the February 2026 federal dataset. By capacity it is the 64th-largest of the 114 state prison records listed for Texas with a published capacity. It is one of 9 correctional facilities in El Paso County, and Texas operates 103 state prisons in total.
Contact & details
February 2026 federal directory dataset
Finding someone first
Nothing below works without two things: confirmation that the person is at Sanchez State Jail, and their CDCR number. Book a visit without them and you will be turned away; post a letter without the number and the mailroom cannot route it.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice publishes a public inmate search covering people in TDCJ custody. Search by TDCJ number, SID number, or name. County jail populations are held separately.
Phone calls, money and mail
Phone calls
TDCJ phone service runs on the Texas Offender Telephone System, operated by Securus. Before you can receive a call you must register your number — online at texasprisonphone.com (you will need the inmate's TDCJ ID number) or by phone at (866) 806-7804. You must be at least 18, be the registered owner of the line, and the name on your driver license or state ID must match the telephone listing. TDCJ does not publish a per-minute rate on its own page; reporting by the Texas Tribune in July 2024 put it at 6 cents per minute since 2018, with the FCC's 2024 order setting a lower ceiling for audio calls at large facilities from January 1, 2025 — treat those figures as indicative and confirm the current rate before relying on it. Phones are available 5:00 a.m. to midnight, calls are limited to 30 minutes, and you must be on the inmate's Approved Calling List. Three-way calls, call forwarding, and speakerphone are prohibited and can cost the inmate phone privileges.
Putting money on the books
Texas is one of the few states with genuinely free deposit routes, and they lead this list. Free route one: a money order or cashier's check made payable to 'Inmate Trust Fund for Offender Name and Number', mailed to Inmate Trust Fund, PO Box 60, Huntsville, TX 77342-0060. Free route two: TDCJ's ACH plan, an automatic monthly debit taken on or around the 5th and credited on or around the 10th — but the ACH authorization form and voided check go to a different address, PO Box 629, Huntsville, TX 77342-0629. Two boxes, two purposes; sending one to the other delays it. Fee-charging vendors, if you need speed: Access Corrections (1-866-345-1884, or cash at Dollar General with a CashPayToday barcode), eCommDirect at texas.gov, JPay (1-800-574-5729, or cash at MoneyGram), TouchPay (tdcjpayment.com, 1-877-868-5358), and ACE Cash Express (1-866-734-2306). Never send cash or stamps. Trust fund questions: (936) 438-8990.
Writing to someone here
TDCJ general correspondence is digitized: letters, greeting cards, drawings, and photos go to Texas Department of Criminal Justice, [inmate's full name + TDCJ number], PO Box 660400, Dallas, TX 75266-0400 — not to the unit. Securus scans them and the inmate reads them on a tablet or kiosk within three business days; the service is free for both sender and inmate. The split matters: legal mail, media correspondence, and books, magazines, and packages from verified publishers are NOT scanned — those still go physically to the unit address. So a letter mailed to the unit gets delayed or returned, and a book mailed to Dallas goes nowhere. Correspondence rules live in TDCJ Board Policy BP-03.91. Securus digital-mail support: (800) 844-6591.
Guides that go wider than this institution
These cover the same ground across every facility in the directory, which is what you want if the person may be moved, or if you are helping someone in a different state.