Ask The Inmate. Real answers from people who've been there.

Being her husband is your strongest argument, and it is worth pursuing through the right channels. Standard visitor approval runs every applicant through a criminal background check, and a felony conviction combined with active probation will block approval through the normal process. That is the automatic result and it is not personal. The system flags anyone with a record, and someone on probation for the same crime that put their spouse inside is going to get denied at the standard level. The...

Shock incarceration, which is what New York's shock camp program is, exists specifically to get eligible inmates home faster than a standard sentence would. That is the whole point of the program, and if your boyfriend was accepted into it, that is genuinely good news. The standard New York shock program runs six months of intensive military-style programming inside the facility. It is physically and mentally demanding by design, covering drill, physical training, discipline, substance abuse treatment, and life skills. Inmates...

The 84-day release date most likely refers to the remainder of his original parole violation, not any resolution of the new charges. Those are two separate legal matters and they do not automatically resolve together. Absconding from parole for a full year is a serious violation on its own. When someone cuts off contact with their parole officer and goes off the grid, the court treats that as a deliberate choice to evade supervision rather than a technical slip. That history...

Yes, your fiance is right. In virtually every state prison system, the visitor is responsible for initiating the approval process, not the inmate. Before you can visit anyone at the Huntsville Unit or any Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility, you have to submit a visitor application. Once that application is in, your information gets run through the National Crime Information Center database, which is a federal criminal records system. That check is standard and it is thorough. If your record comes...

If your husband is still in custody with a November release date after telling you charges were dropped, the most likely explanation is that the charges were not actually dropped, or that only some of them were reduced or dismissed while others remain active. Inmates sometimes misunderstand or misrepresent what happened in court, occasionally intentionally to avoid a difficult conversation, and sometimes genuinely because legal proceedings are confusing and attorneys do not always explain outcomes clearly. A charge being reduced to...

Every offender is sent a copy of his or her Master Prison Record document reflecting the calculation of their sentence when the calculation is complete.  If there are questions about time computation, offenders housed in state facilities should write the Records Office at his/her assigned facility.  For offenders housed in local facilities, he/she is advised they may submit his/her questions in writing following the Administrative Remedy Process.  While offenders often ask family members or friends to contact the Office of...

Offenders are assigned to facilities based on custody classification, space availability, level of care designations (medical and/or mental health), and many other contributing factors.  While DOC would like to make assignments with only geographical considerations in mind, it is not possible to do this based on the demand for beds in various areas of the state.  As such, offenders are placed in locations that best meet their needs and the space needs of the Department.  Written transfer requests should be...

Proposition 57 passed in California on November 8, 2016, but the release of eligible inmates did not happen the day after the election. That is not how ballot measures work in practice. When a proposition passes, the implementing regulations have to be written, reviewed, and adopted before the system can act on them. For Prop 57, that process played out over months as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation developed the specific rules governing who qualified, how the parole board...

The short answer is no, and understanding why makes it clear that no amount of searching is going to change that outcome. WITSEC, the federal Witness Security Program administered by the United States Marshals Service, has never had a protected individual found by someone they were hidden from. That is not an accident or a lucky streak. It is the result of a program specifically engineered to make people unfindable. New identity, new location, severed ties to everything from the previous...

A SAFPF sentence in Texas is not the same as a traditional prison sentence, though it is managed within the TDCJ system. SAFPF stands for Substance Abuse Felony Punishment Facility, and it is an intensive in-prison drug treatment program for felony offenders whose substance abuse is directly tied to their criminal behavior. Participants live in a structured therapeutic environment and complete a treatment curriculum rather than doing general population time. It is still incarceration, but the program is treatment-oriented rather...

SHU inmates at Wasco State Prison are permitted one fifteen-minute phone call per week. That is the standard allowance for segregated housing in the California system, and it applies regardless of the reason for placement. One call, fifteen minutes, once every seven days. When that window comes up, make sure you are available to answer because missing it means waiting another full week. On visitation approval, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation processes visitor applications on a timeline that varies...