There is no automated delivery confirmation on individual letters, and that is true of the postal system generally rather than anything specific to InmateAid. Once a letter enters the facility's mailroom, the staff processing and distributing mail does not send delivery receipts back to senders. The most reliable signal that your letter arrived is hearing from your inmate directly. When they receive your letter they will typically mention it on the next call or write back. That response is your confirmation. On...

Absolutely, and you are doing exactly the right thing. There are very few things a person on the outside can do that make a direct and immediate difference in an inmate's daily life. Consistent mail is one of them. A letter or postcard arriving in the mailroom is something physical your inmate can hold, read more than once, and keep. In an environment where personal property is minimal and days blur together, that connection to the outside world carries real weight. Magazines...

Yes, the inmates may write you through our Letters from Inmates service. We are essentially being your postal address, the inmates writes back to you with our address, we scan it into your account and you can access it through your My Account portal. Inmates have no Internet access. People like the privacy this affords, some do not want their own address used. We estimate it takes 2-3 business days for the mail to reach the facility. Once there, the staff actually opens...

Inmates must initiate the call. They cannot receive incoming calls. Depending upon where there are, there will be ONE carrier that you must use. You can accept a collect call from the inmate, set up a prepaid account or the inmate might be able to pay for their own calls from their commissary account. The carrier's prices are tiered. InmateAid finds the best number to use on THEIR system. In many cases, we can save your inmate $12.00 per call with...

The inmate registration or ID number is what facilities use to route deposits, mail, and phone calls to the correct person. There are a few straightforward ways to find it. If you know the state where your cousin is incarcerated, go directly to that state's Department of Corrections website and use their public inmate search. Most state DOC sites let you search by full legal name and date of birth and will return the inmate ID number along with current facility...

The calls are expensive because it is set up with only one provider. No competition makes it easy for them to charge higher-than-normal rates. It is predatory pricing, but there is nothing you can do about it except check to see if there are better rates with different telephone numbers. That is what our Discount Telephone Service does, it takes the second-guessing out of it. If you provide your telephone number and the location of your inmate, we will give you...

A one-year sentence in a county jail rarely means twelve full months behind bars. The actual time served is almost always less, and in New York the calculation works in his favor. New York state generally applies a good time credit that reduces a sentence by up to a third for inmates who follow the rules and stay out of trouble. On a one-year sentence that works out to about eight months served if he maintains a clean disciplinary record from...