Can an Inmate Hear Your Voicemail if You Miss Their Call?

No. When an inmate places a call through the prison phone system and you do not answer, the call does not connect to voicemail the way a standard cell phone call would. The system simply registers that the call was not answered and disconnects. Your voicemail greeting does not play and the inmate hears nothing beyond the automated prompts of the prison phone system itself.

This means leaving a new phone number in your voicemail greeting as a way to get the number to your husband will not work. The call never reaches your voicemail so the message you recorded never plays on his end.

There are better ways to get a new number to an inmate. The most reliable is to send it in a letter. Write the number clearly in a letter and mail it directly to the facility. Once he receives it he can submit the new number to be added to his approved contact list through the facility's phone provider. That process takes a few days to clear but it is the legitimate path to getting a new number on file.

You can also contact the facility directly and ask to speak with his case manager or the phone account administrator. Explain that your number has changed and ask what the process is for updating it on his approved contact list from the outside. Some facilities have a process for family members to initiate that update directly rather than waiting for the inmate to do it.