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

The phone service at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility is set up through bid process covering all of the Oregon DOC facilities. Telmate has the contract for all inmate outbound calling and to tape record the calls. Therefore, you have to use them to receive calls - they are the only provider. The choice is whether you pay Telmate for a long-distance call (to Eugene) or a local call (to a number we would provision for you). Here is how it...

No, marriage after incarceration is not a determinate in considering whether an inmate is fit for parole. A parole hearing is an opportunity for the offender to present his or her side of the story, and express their own thoughts as to why they feel they should be paroled. Many subjects come up during the course of the hearing. These typically include the details of the offense, prior criminal history, the guidelines which the Commission uses in making their determination, the...

Unsupervised work release is one of the most trusted positions an inmate can hold and reaching it says a great deal about the programming, conduct record, and overall standing the person has built throughout their sentence. The arrangement works essentially the way it sounds. The inmate leaves the facility during the day to perform work in the community or on an approved work site and then returns to the facility in the evening. They are not accompanied by a corrections officer...

FCI Edgefield in South Carolina operates both a main facility and a satellite camp. For a 21-month sentence on a nonviolent offense with no significant criminal history, there is a reasonable chance of camp placement, which makes the daily experience considerably less stressful than the main facility. That determination happens during intake and classification. On good time, the federal system automatically applies good time credits to every sentence over one year. The credits are granted upfront rather than earned incrementally, which...

Texas state jail felony sentences operate under different rules than regular state prison sentences and the distinction matters significantly for how much time someone actually serves. Traditional Texas Department of Criminal Justice sentences for state prison inmates do include good time credits that can reduce time served. However, Texas state jail felonies, which are the lowest level felony classification in the state and typically carry sentences of 180 days to two years, have historically operated under stricter day-for-day rules that limit...

There is no standard timeline for halfway house approval to come back once the unit team submits the paperwork. The Reentry Management Office processes submissions on their own schedule, and a month of pending status is not unusual or a sign that something is wrong. A few things worth understanding about how this process works. The unit team submits their recommendation with significant lead time built in, often several months before the projected release date. That buffer exists precisely because the response...

When someone absconds from parole and is arrested on a warrant with no new charges, the parole board has discretion over how much of the remaining parole time gets reinstated as prison time. There is no universal rule that says half or all of the remaining time must be served and the outcome depends on several factors. The parole board will review the full picture at a revocation hearing. How long the person was AWOL, the circumstances that led to the...

This is one of those questions where the stated goal and the actual policy do not line up and you are right to notice the contradiction. The Bureau of Prisons does emphasize family connection as part of its reentry philosophy and research consistently shows that maintained family relationships reduce recidivism. The 300-minute monthly limit exists anyway and has for decades, driven more by institutional management, contracted phone system economics, and security considerations than by any genuine commitment to maximizing family...

This means that your inmate has been well-behaved and earned a custody/security-level status reduction. The work camp is a detail that is reserved for the most trusted inmates. Their living conditions are more like an army barracks than a prison. There are no cells and very few if any fences. Their daily routine starts to resemble more like a normal citizen than a typical inmate (where movement is restricted and rules are tight). We think you should view this as...