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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.

Ask your question or browse previous questions in response to comments or further questions of members of the InmateAid community.

Subject: Send inmate mail

There is no return-receipt feature to this service. The only way you will know for sure is when your inmate thanks you for sending it. Mail takes a couple of days through USPS. Once it arrives in the mail room it is up to the staff to read the letters, review the pictures and determine when they will hand it to the inmates at mail call .

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Subject: Sentencing questions

You can check with the Clerk of the Court where he was sentenced. Ask for a copy of the Judgement and Commitment Order signed by the judge. It will have the confinement order and any fine, restitution or court fees owed. If the jail is charging a daily incarceration fee like some jails are now doing, you will have to call them as find out what the rate is.

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Subject: Inmate care packages

If the facility has stopped deducting inmate fees when you order care packages for your husband, it could indicate a few possibilities, but it doesn't necessarily mean that he currently has money on his books. Here’s what it could mean: 1. Change in Facility Policy: Fee Structure Adjustment: The facility may have changed its policy regarding how they handle fees related to care packages or inmate commissary accounts. Sometimes, facilities modify their processes, deciding not to deduct

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Subject: Pending criminal charges

A fugitive of justice charge means that another state or jurisdiction, in this case likely Los Angeles County based on the LACBA reference in the warrant number, has an active warrant for your daughter and Arizona is holding her until that jurisdiction comes to collect her. She has not necessarily been charged with a new crime in Arizona. The charge is essentially a holding status while the extradition process is arranged. The LACBA prefix on the warrant number points

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Subject: Survive prison

This is a question that is not for us to answer for you. You cannot let the silence convince you of one thing or another. If you confirm it, that is one thing but to break up "thinking it is someone else" might be a mistake. There might be another explanation since the whole prison-thing is about isolation. They might have phone privileges suspended, or he might not have funds to call, or maybe he thinks you are with someone

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Subject: Sentencing questions

When sentences run concurrently, defendants serve all the sentences at the same time. When sentences run consecutively, defendants have to finish serving the sentence for one offense before they start serving the sentence for any other offense. If a defendant is convicted of a number of crimes that carry lengthy prison terms, the difference between consecutive and concurrent sentences can be tremendous. The same factors that judges tend to consider when deciding on the severity of a sentence (for

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Subject: Inmate transfer

As an inmate does his time and is not receiving any incident reports, their custody level will change for the better. That is the incentive for an inmate to maintain good behavior. The lower the level of custody, the easier their time is. The higher security facilities have inmates with long sentences and not much to lose when it comes to igniting situations with rule breaking or violence. Inmates that want to go home follow the rules and get rewarded

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Subject: Law & court questions - legal terms

There is no real quick way to speed up extradition. You will have to let the process play out. This is done sometimes to sweat the inmate into a plea agreement. Finding a good attorney is not the easiest thing to do or the cheapest. You will have to talk with your daughter and get a feel for her case. No one really "knows a good criminal attorney" unless they have been through a criminal TRIAL and been

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Subject: Sentencing questions

The inmate always knows their out-date - your brother knows for sure. You can also call the facility and ask to speak to his counselor or case manager. You might find the information online; if he is in federal for sure, and most of the state websites have their release date.

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Subject: Send inmate mail

Most facilities will not pass along messages from the outside to the inmates. One of the services at InmateAid is the [Send a Letter](https://www.inmateaid.com/letters) where you can let your inmate know what you're thinking

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