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

Correctional facilities do not operate like the postal service. When an inmate is transferred, the old facility does not forward incoming mail to the new location. Mail that arrives at the previous facility after the transfer has already occurred will typically be processed by the mailroom and returned to the sender marked as undeliverable or noting that the inmate is no longer in custody there. This is one of the most common reasons a letter fails to reach its destination, and...

The prison phone system is confusing at first but once you understand how it is structured, it makes more sense. Most correctional facilities award an exclusive contract to a single phone provider through a bidding process. Securus is one of the largest and holds contracts at thousands of facilities across the country. When an inmate moves to a new facility that uses Securus, all outbound calls from that facility run through Securus, regardless of what you have set up elsewhere. There...

It is true that if there is any sort of balance from a previous charge or any fine or restitution they will deduct it from the commissary. If there is a stipulation as to a percentage, that might be good information to know. But if the amount is substantial, they might take all that you deposit. InmateAid's service is not email; it is with the US Postal Service. Inmates do not have Internet access. We estimate that it takes 2-3...

Magazine subscriptions all take about 2 months to get started. It is not a product of our customer service, it is a publisher issue. If you would look at a magazine subscription insert in any magazine out there, underneath where you fill out your name and address is a line of fine print that states it takes "could take up to 8-10 weeks to begin delivery". It is nothing we can control and would have been the same issue if...

Incoming mail generally continues to reach inmates in the hole, which is the common term for disciplinary segregation or the SHU. Mail access is one of the privileges that survives most SHU placements and a letter sent through InmateAid travels through the facility's standard mail system the same way any other letter does. It goes to the mailroom, gets screened, and gets delivered to wherever the inmate is currently housed including segregation. That said, delivery may be slower than usual. Mail...

Standard continuing education courses completed at a federal prison camp like Montgomery FPC do not directly reduce your sentence the way some people expect. Completing GED programs, vocational training, or college coursework is genuinely valuable and looks good on paper for case manager reviews and halfway house recommendations, but it does not generate the kind of formal sentence reduction that comes from specific designated programs. The one program in the federal system that produces a concrete sentence reduction is RDAP, the...

Mailing a letter to an inmate has a few basic requirements that apply universally regardless of which facility the inmate is at. Every piece of outgoing mail must include the sender's name and a return address. This is a postal requirement as well as a facility requirement. Mail arriving without a return address is typically rejected by the mailroom and discarded rather than delivered. Using InmateAid to send letters automatically satisfies this requirement. Your name appears on the envelope and InmateAid's...

There are two reliable paths to getting accurate sentencing information for someone incarcerated in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections system. The first is the Massachusetts DOC offender locator, which is a public-facing search tool available through the state's Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. You can search by name and the results typically include the facility, sentence information, and in many cases the offense of conviction. For someone currently housed at MCI Shirley that database should return a current record....

InmateAid was set up with this in mind. You can set up a member/user account and sync it to an inmate profile that you create or one that is already created by clicking "follow". You may then write your inmate, send them photos of you and your family, holiday times or other occasions where you are thinking of your inmate. You can create cheaper inmate calling with our Discount Telephone Service, you can send magazine subscriptions from thousands of titles...

As your fiancé gets closer to his release date, the facility will go over a release plan with him. This usually happens through his counselor or case manager before he is discharged. Transportation after release: If he does not have someone to pick him up, the state will usually provide basic transportation, which may include: A bus ticket (often Greyhound or similar) Transportation to a nearby transit station This is meant to get him back to his approved residence or home area. If you want to...

When someone accepts a plea deal the reduction in sentence is already baked into the agreement. The plea itself is the trade, an acknowledgment of responsibility in exchange for a lesser charge or a lighter sentence than what a conviction at trial might have produced. That negotiation is finished once the judge accepts the plea and imposes the sentence. That does not mean options are completely exhausted but it does mean the available paths are narrower than they would be for...