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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: General prison questions-terminology

If your husband was transferred from another federal facility, his inmate trust account balance will follow him. The Bureau of Prisons keeps that account centralized, so the money moves with him automatically. He should have access to those funds once he is processed into FDC Miami, though it can take a few days during intake for everything to show up and become available. If he was coming from a county jail or a state facility, it is different. Those

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Subject: Release questions

Every single day counts. Time served at the county jail, time served at a reception center, and time served at any other facility all accumulate toward the release date without exception. Not one day of incarceration is thrown away or ignored in the calculation. Here is how the credits in your situation stack up. Your husband had one month in the county before sentencing, plus the 60 days of credit the judge formally granted at sentencing. Then three months

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Subject: Inmate phone calls

We get you a local telephone number to use with the service at the prison. You cannot use this as a substitute for them, nor can you accept a collect call through our number. The easiest way is to have your inmate buy calling cards from the commissary and dial the local number we issued you - it will ring on your number without changing anything on your end. Calling cards are available at the commissary in denominations of $10,

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Subject: General prison questions-terminology

Two or more penal sentences that are served simultaneously: the total sentence period equals the duration of the longest sentence. Sentences that may all be served at the same time, with the longest period controlling, are concurrent sentences. Judges may sentence concurrently out of compassion, plea bargaining, or the fact that the several crimes are interrelated. When the sentences run one after the other, they are consecutive sentences. In contrast, consecutive sentences run one after another: the total sentence period

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Subject: General prison questions-terminology

When someone gets time for a parole violation, where they serve that time depends on how the court and the parole authority structured the sentence. In most cases, a parole violation means the person is being returned to custody to serve time tied to the original sentence. That usually places them in state prison, not county jail, because they are still under the jurisdiction of the original case. The 160 days your husband received is the sanction for

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Subject: General prison questions-terminology

There is a nurse's station inside the prison that is visited 3-4 times a week by a local physician. Your inmate will get a complete physical when entering the facility and any medical attention that is required or medicine that they will need going forward gets handled there. Inmates that feel sick may request a doctor's visit, this is referred to as a "sick call". When the doctor arrives, the inmate will be called to the appointment, diagnosed and treated

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Subject: Send inmate money

Your inmate can request a check be sent home, back to the person that deposited it in the trust account or to be transferred to another facility if they do that. The money is definitely returned, the inmate is the decision maker as to where.

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Subject: Send inmate mail

Each letter is $1.49. The Photos are $1.39 each. If you are going to send a lot of photos, let us know beforehand and we will send you a coupon code to discount the whole purchase.

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Subject: Send inmate mail

Yes, the mail goes out up to 4:30 pm EST on Saturday. Anything that comes in after that time does not make it to the US Post Office until Monday morning. However, there is no mail call on the weekends for the inmates to receive incoming mail.

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Subject: Commissary

In most cases, inmates do not have access to regular email or the internet, so they cannot choose to send you a message electronically just because you provided your email or entered payment information online. If you include your home address when sending a letter, that is where the inmate will write back. Their response will come through standard postal mail, not email. They will use stamps and envelopes from their commissary account, or if they have no funds,

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