What Colorado VINE Covers
Colorado VINE / VINELink is the statewide custody-status and release-notification service at vinelink.vineapps.com/state/CO/ENGLISH. Colorado local agencies describe it as a 24-hour English/Spanish service for custody information in participating county jails, with automatic notifications for registered users. The state landing page describes Colorado VINE as a free, secure, confidential way to access custody status, criminal-case information, and state-approved service providers.
For Rio Grande County, VINE should be treated as an alert and status channel, not as the complete release record. The official sheriff page did not show a public rolling 24-hour or 72-hour release feed during the research. That makes pre-release VINE registration especially useful, but it does not replace the Rio Grande County Sheriff's Office release record, Rio Grande Combined Court docket/register, CDOC offender search, or a receiving-agency record when the person was transferred.
Use VINE most aggressively when the person may still be in custody and the timing of release matters. If the custody event has already ended, the sheriff or court may be the better source for a historical date, release type, bond order, or transfer notation. If the person went from local custody to state prison, CDOC becomes the system of record for the later prison or parole status.
Search One Rio Grande Inmate
The best VINELink search is person-specific. Start with the exact first and last name used in the booking or court case if known. If the name has changed, search the prosecuted or arresting name as well. VINE may show multiple people with similar names, so compare age, facility, custody status, booking context, and any available identifier before selecting a record.
- Go to Colorado VINELink.
- If starting from a national VINE page, choose Colorado.
- Select the offender or person-search path.
- Choose all facilities, or a specific sheriff/facility if Rio Grande County Jail appears as a selectable option.
- Enter the last name and at least the first letter of the first name; use more letters when matches are too broad.
- Open the correct person record and read the custody status, facility, and any release or transfer status shown.
- If a photo option appears, use it only as an identity clue and confirm the status with the official custodian when the details matter.
If VINELink does not return a match, do not assume there was no Rio Grande County booking. The person may already have been released, booked under a different name, held in another county, transferred to CDOC, held for federal or immigration custody, or outside the participating VINE feed. Use the full release-search workflow on Rio Grande County released inmates when a VINE result is missing or unclear.
Use the Colorado VINE Phone Line
Colorado local VINE instructions also publish a phone route: 1-888-263-8463. The phone route is useful when a user cannot use the website, when a quick custody-status check is needed, or when phone alerts will be the main notification method. The phone prompts are still tied to the person in custody and the available agency feed.
- Call 1-888-263-8463.
- Select the adult offender search option.
- Enter the offender's first and last name through the prompts.
- Listen for the current custody status.
- If prompted and the person is still in custody, choose registration for updates and complete the notification prompts.
What VINELink Shows About Release
A released VINE result may use phrases such as released, out of custody, transferred, or another custody-status phrase depending on the feeding agency. It may show a facility and date fields when those are supplied. It usually does not show the full legal reason for release, the bond order, sentence completion, or booking-photo policy. Treat the result as a status signal, then verify the formal record with the agency that owns the underlying custody or court event.
| Field or signal | What it can tell you |
|---|---|
| Custody status | Whether the feed currently reports the person in custody, released, out of custody, transferred, or changed in status. |
| Facility or agency | The jail, sheriff office, or custody agency associated with the current feed record when supplied. |
| Name and identifiers | Identity clues for matching the correct person; compare against court, booking, or DOC information. |
| Release or transfer date | A date may appear if the agency sends it, but the sheriff, court, or CDOC record is the better formal source. |
| Photo option | Some Colorado instructions mention a show-photo option if available; it is not a complete mugshot archive. |
| Notification registration | Shows that you can register for phone, email, text/SMS, or TTY alerts when the person is still in custody. |
Register for a Release Alert
The timing rule is the key local angle. Since Rio Grande County did not show an official public recent-release feed in the research, VINE is one of the few alert-based paths available to learn that a custody status changed. But Colorado instructions say the person must be in custody when registration occurs. If the person has already been released and there was no registration, VINE may not provide the same historical detail that a sheriff release record or court register can provide.
Keep the registration tied to the specific custody event, because a later booking requires a new VINE registration.
- Open the correct person record in Colorado VINELink while the person is still in custody.
- Choose a notification method: phone, email, text/SMS, or TTY where available.
- Continue through the registration screens.
- For phone notifications, enter a PIN that can be remembered.
- Use the PIN to confirm receipt and stop repeated phone notification calls.
- Complete registration and keep the identifying information for the custody event.
- If the person is released and later re-arrested, register again for the new custody event.
Confirm a Rio Grande Release
After a VINE alert, confirm the custody trail with the agency that can explain why the person left custody. For a local jail release, call the Rio Grande County Sheriff's Office at 719-657-4000 and ask for release date/time, release type, and whether the person was released to the community or transferred to another agency. If the release followed a court event, use Rio Grande Combined Court or the Colorado Judicial Branch docket/register path to find the bond order, disposition, sentencing order, probation order, or warrant return.
For a Colorado state-prison sentence, use the CDOC offender search. CDOC records can show state custody, parole, release, or discharge context that a county jail page will not show. For federal custody, use BOP. For immigration custody, use ICE ODLS. If the sheriff says the person was released to another agency, ask which agency accepted custody before assuming the release was a community release.
| If VINE says... | Confirm with... |
|---|---|
| Released from Rio Grande County Jail | Rio Grande County Sheriff's Office release record and Rio Grande Combined Court if a court order caused release. |
| Transferred | The sheriff for the receiving agency, then CDOC, BOP, ICE, USMS, or another county as applicable. |
| Returned to custody | The current jail, CDOC, or parole/probation channel depending on the warrant or revocation source. |
| No match found | Sheriff phone/records, court docket/register, CDOC search, or another custody system based on the case history. |
VINELink Limits in Rio Grande Cases
VINE data can lag, depend on the feeding agency, or disappear from a public search after the custody event changes. It is not a complete court file, a county records archive, a CDOC sentence calculation page, a BOP federal release record, or an ICE locator. It also may not explain whether a release was bond, time served, dismissal, probation, parole, transfer, detainer pickup, or discharge. Those distinctions matter because a person can be out of Rio Grande County Jail but still under court supervision, state parole, federal custody, immigration custody, or another agency hold.
Rio Grande County also has a transfer-sensitive custody trail. Public ICE contract material identifies a Rio Grande County Jail agreement source, and federal sources explain that USMS and ICE custody are separate from local jail custody. For a VINE alert that says transferred, ask the sheriff which agency accepted custody and then check that receiving system instead of treating the county release as the end of the matter.
VINE Is Not the CBI Registry
Colorado also has the CBI Sex Offender Registry, but that is a separate public registry for qualifying registrable sex-offender records. CBI states that its online registry does not list all convicted sex offenders in Colorado, excludes misdemeanor-only sex offenses and juveniles adjudicated for sex crimes from public posting, and updates posted records hourly. A registry record is not a jail release record and should not be used as a general released-inmate database. Use it only when the offense and registration status make the registry relevant.