Subject: Visitation
The good news is that most facilities do not restrict visitation strictly to immediate family. The definition of who can visit is broader than people often assume.
As long as you pass the background check and are not a convicted felon or former inmate, there is a strong chance you can get approved as a visitor. Facilities run every applicant through a criminal database check as part of the standard approval process, and a clean record is the primary requirement. The...
Read moreSubject: Visitation
The visits are very comfortable "contact visits". You will be able to hug and hold hands as long as it does not become disrespectful to the other visitors or the guards.
Subject: Law & court questions - legal terms
Call the Clerk of the Court in the county they are being held. They will have all of the documents pertaining to their case and any and all court filings, including a trial or sentence
Subject: Work release
Folks on the outside cannot request or make anything happen on the inside. Inmates with a clean conduct record and that show a willingness to follow recommended programming will get asked to join the work release program.
Subject: Treatment vs.incarceration
The inmate information is not monitored or maintained by the site. We will do so upon request, feel free to share those changes with us via email and we will notify you when it's updated.
Subject: Release questions
It is our understanding that the early release programs are not qualifying most violent offenders.The law is new and there are no cases to point to, but they define the "violent offender" in the language. An inmate will have to petition the court for a resentencing to even get considered for an early release. The sheer risk of having a violent crime happen by someone released on their watch is not going to get much of a chance with this law. You can always...
Read moreSubject: Marriage in prison
Probably not. Inmate marriage is usually reserved for long-term offenders. The county jails are not equiped to handle an inmate wedding.
Subject: Commissary
Inmates shop at the commissary normally once per week. You can place money on their boks using the various inmate money transfer companies. There is either a weekly or monthly maximum spend limit ($75/wk - $340/mo). You cannot normally shop for them unless the facility has an arrangement with a vendor that sells commissary baskets. You would have to check with the exact facility to see if they have a company for you to contact.
Subject: Relationship issues
There is nothing easy about it, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not lived it from either side.
Separation is painful in a way that is hard to describe to someone who has not experienced it. The uncertainty, the financial pressure, the social stigma, the loneliness of holidays and milestones passing without the person you love present, all of it accumulates. Time does help, but it does not make the weight disappear.
What does help is staying connected in whatever ways...
Read moreSubject: Send inmate mail
All correspondence sent to the inmates has the InmateAid corporate address on it. We do not share your information whatsoever. Inmates do write back to our members via the Letters from Inmates service. The letters are received here and we scan them into your My Account area and then notify you by email that you have inmate mail. The cost to retrieve the letter is $1.49. If you include your address in the letter then the inmate would probably correspond...
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