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

It is like military training, there is a lot of marching and exercising, doing  chores that require exertion. There is also a mental toughness element where they test the temperament of the inmates during these tasks, sort of like a drill sergeant in basic training. They work them hard, they are plenty exhausted when they check into their bunks to go to sleep. Not a lot of time for nonsense or trouble-making. It's designed to break young men from breaking the law into...

This disconnect happens because there is no centralized public database that tracks real-time lockdown status for correctional facilities across the country. The websites you are checking are not pulling live facility data and most of them have no mechanism for doing so. Lockdown information is managed internally by each facility and is rarely communicated through any public-facing channel in real time. A facility can be on full lockdown with every inmate confined to their cell and no outside communication allowed, while...

It depends entirely on what triggered the lockdown and how quickly the situation gets resolved. There is no standard duration and lockdowns can last anywhere from a few hours to several weeks or even longer in extreme cases. Short lockdowns lasting a few hours are the most common. These get called for routine reasons like a facility-wide count that comes up short, a minor incident in one housing unit, a medical emergency, or a security sweep. Once the situation is resolved...

Self-surrendering to Fort Dix with a documented medical need is a situation the facility is set up to handle, and sleep apnea is one of the more common conditions that comes up during intake. The concern about dormitory-style living and the impact on other inmates is legitimate and actually works in your favor when making the case for keeping the mouth guard. When you arrive and go through intake processing, declare the mouth guard immediately and explain what it is for....

Yes, unfortunately the answer is that significant federal prison time for alien smuggling is very real even for a first time offender and even when the person claims they did not know the full circumstances of what they were involved in. The harsh sentencing reality around this offense comes directly from the post September 11 legal landscape. The Patriot Act and the expanded authority given to the Department of Homeland Security dramatically increased the penalties associated with smuggling people across the...

Being on probation does not automatically disqualify you from visiting someone held at an immigration detention facility but it does add a layer of complexity that requires careful handling before you show up at the door. ICE detention facilities operated by private contractors like CoreCivic, formerly CCA, run their own visitor approval processes that are separate from the standard state or federal prison visitor screening. Central Arizona Detention Center follows ICE's civil detention standards for visitation rather than the criminal corrections...

No. When an inmate places a call through the prison phone system and you do not answer, the call does not connect to voicemail the way a standard cell phone call would. The system simply registers that the call was not answered and disconnects. Your voicemail greeting does not play and the inmate hears nothing beyond the automated prompts of the prison phone system itself. This means leaving a new phone number in your voicemail greeting as a way to get...

In most state systems, a seven-year sentence for domestic assault does not mean seven full years behind the wall, but how much gets shaved off depends on the jurisdiction and the specific classification of the offense. The 85 percent rule applies in many states, meaning at a minimum 85 percent of the imposed sentence must be served before release becomes possible. On a seven-year sentence that works out to roughly five years and ten months of actual time served before parole...

No. This is a prison rumor, and versions of it have been circulating through correctional facilities across the country for decades. The specific details change depending on the state, the year, and who is telling it, but the pattern is always the same. A specific date, a specific fraction of time, and a specific category of inmates. It sounds credible because it is specific, and it spreads fast because everyone inside wants it to be true. Sentence reduction legislation does not...

Inmates do not have access to the Internet. They must respond with their own version of a postal letter. Inmates that have money on their inmate trust accounts can purchase stamps and envelopes at the weekly commissary. If they do not have money on their books, the prison will provide indigent inmates with all the materials necessary to send out mail to their loved ones. If your inmate writes to you directly, using your address, the cost of the mailing is a 49 cent stamp. Many...

We estimate that it takes 2-3 business days to make it to the jail. Once there, the staff opens and reads each piece of mail and inspects it for contraband. Once they decide the mail is fit to be handed out at mail call, your inmate will receive it. Any delay that occurs at the facility is out of our control. We make no guarantees as to how long it will take as there are thousands of facilities and none of them do things the same...