Family Services — Ask the Inmate
Incarceration affects every member of a family not just the person behind bars. Children, spouses, parents, and siblings all navigate their own version of the experience often without support or guidance. This section covers the full range of challenges families face including maintaining relationships through letters and calls, explaining incarceration to children, managing finances on a reduced income, navigating the visitation process, supporting a loved one through the emotional difficulty of incarceration, and preparing for reentry together. The questions answered here come from real families in real situations, parents who have not heard from their son in weeks, spouses managing alone, children trying to understand where their parent went. InmateAid was built by someone who experienced both sides of this equation and the guidance here reflects that understanding. Families are not bystanders in this process. They are essential to their loved one's success both inside and after release. See also our sections on Visitation, Relationship Issues, and Send Inmate Mail.
Related InmateAid Services
Yes, many correctional facilities now provide inmates with tablets and some of those tablets include a messaging function that works similarly to texting. However there are important limitations to understand before you expect this to work smoothly. First not every facility offers tablets. Availability varies widely by facility type, state, and the contracted technology provider. Federal facilities use TRULINCS for electronic messaging while many state and county facilities use platforms like JPay or GTL's ConnectNetwork. If tablets are available
Read moreNo, this is not true. There is no government program, benefit, or entitlement that pays a spouse simply for being married to an incarcerated person. This rumor circulates inside facilities and outside them, but it has no basis in law. Where some confusion may come from is Social Security disability benefits. When someone receiving SSDI is incarcerated, their benefits are suspended after a certain period in custody. In some cases, a spouse may have previously been receiving spousal benefits
Read moreMost correctional facilities have a process for exactly this situation. Call or write the facility and explain that you have a legal document requiring the inmate's notarized signature. Ask to speak with the inmate's case manager or the facility's legal or administrative department. They can walk you through the procedure, which typically involves the inmate being brought to an administrative area where a notary public employed by or contracted with the facility witnesses and notarizes the signature. This service
Read moreThere is no exact timeline, and anyone who gives you a specific number is guessing. What you are dealing with is a process that moves at the pace of the supervising agency, and that pace varies significantly depending on where you live and how backed up the caseload is. When a registered sex offender on supervision wants to have contact with a minor, even their own child, the process is thorough by design. A probation or parole officer has
Read moreYes, they use the InmateAid office address - the mail comes in and is scanned and placed into your My Account Dashboard. This serves to protect the user on several fronts. If you mail into the prison/jail with a return address, and you want your inmate to know your address, it's best to put it in the body of the letter and not the return address. Other inmates use that sort of detail to extort, blackmail or otherwise menace good folks
Read moreInmates are not eligible for any government assistance including Social Security and welfare. Since you are asking, if you attempt to collect on behalf of an incarcerated person there is a very good chance you will become an inmate, too.
Read moreYes, the mother cannot keep the baby in jail, BUT it is possible that she gets the baby when she gets out
Read moreyes, mail is sacred and all facilities allow it, even for indigent inmates (the facility will provide paper, envelopes and stamps)
Read moreThis is not impossible - keep trying
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