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Ask a former inmate questions at no charge. The inmate answering has spent considerable time in the federal prison system, state and county jails, and in a prison that was run by the private prison entity CCA.

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Subject: Release questions

The most direct source of that information is your husband himself. Once an inmate reaches a work camp with a release date approaching, they typically know their out-date or have a very clear sense of the timeline. If he has not told you the specific date, asking him directly on the next call is the fastest way to get a concrete answer. From your end on the outside, calling the facility and asking to speak with a counselor is

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Subject: Inmate phone calls

If the system your person is incarcerated in requires phone bill verification as part of the number approval process, that requirement applies across the entire system regardless of custody level or facility type. Moving to a work camp does not exempt an inmate from the verification requirements that govern the broader DOC phone system. The rules travel with the inmate, not with the facility. That means if phone bill verification was required at the previous facility, it is still

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Subject: Inmate phone calls

The Discount Phone Service is not a replacement for the phone service at the jail or prison. Each facility as only one carrier. That carrier can set their rates to whatever they can get away with. We have discovered over the many years of helping the families of inmates that a "different phone number altogether" may make the calls from your inmate cheaper. We provide you the best number for your inmate's location. That number is given to the

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Subject: Pending criminal charges

The charges are public record and accessible through the Clerk of the Court in the county where he was arrested. That office maintains all case filings including charging documents, and you can contact them by phone or in person to ask what is on the docket under his name. In many jurisdictions the court's website also has an online case search function where you can find basic case information by name or case number at no cost. If you

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Subject: Arrest record search

The timing is the issue. When someone is first booked, the information does not flow instantly to every database. VINELink, state DOC websites, and county jail rosters all update on different schedules, and fresh arrests can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days to propagate fully across all systems. Finding her on VINELink is a good sign that the booking is in process, but the facility's own public roster may simply not have caught up yet.

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Subject: Work release

Your son will need to have a meeting with his counselor to go over the sentencing calculation. This is something only he can take care of. There is an inmate handbook he received at Orientation where it lays out the specific rules and requirements to apply for work release. Unfortunately, there is very little we on the outside can do when it comes to administrative issues inside the prison or jail.

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Subject: Sentencing questions

You would need to call the Clerk of the Court in the jurisdiction where he was charged and convicted. When calling, ask for the Judgment and Commitment Order. This would be the document that catalogued the fine and/or punishment that the judge signed into the record. They might not give you the information over the phone so you'd then have to order the printing and mailing of the document (for a nominal handling fee) to your home. 

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Subject: Relationship issues

No. An inmate's call list, visitation list, and trust fund account are all private and that information is not available to you regardless of your relationship to them. That is the factual answer. Here is the honest one. The fact that you are asking this question means something is already telling you that something is off. Trust that instinct, because it is rarely wrong. Inmates have access to more people than most of their partners on the outside

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Subject: Inmate transfer

The Federal Transfer Center (FTC) in Oklahoma City is located directly on the tarmac of Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This facility is primarily designed to house holdover inmates in transit to other facilities. The mission of the FTC is to confine, on a short-term basis, inmates who are being transported through the U.S. Marshal Service, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, U.S. Parole Commission, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons transportation system. Security of the offender is maintained in

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Subject: Inmate transfer

The Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center (FRCD) is the first stop for newly incarcerated inmates confined in the Missouri Department of corrections. Depending on the assessment of the offender, they will be classified based on the age, crime convicted of, length of sentence and risk of flight. This classification will place them in a security category that aligns with the type of prison (maximum, medium, low or minimum security) they will do the balance of their sentence. During the first

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