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Ask a former inmate questions at no charge. The inmate answering has spent considerable time in the federal prison system, state and county jails, and in a prison that was run by the private prison entity CCA.

Ask your question or browse previous questions in response to comments or further questions of members of the InmateAid community.

Subject: Inmate phone calls

You may use our letter writing service to notify your inmate of the new number, we will give you a coupon code which will pay for it. If they are moved to a different facility send us an email at aid.inmateaid.com with the new facility name and state, we will have the new number for you within an hour

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Subject: Residential drug abuse program (rdap)

Yes, even if RDAP is recommended in the sentencing documents, the inmate still needs to actively request and go through the application process once they arrive at their designated facility. After intake and orientation within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the inmate will meet with their: Counselor Case manager Unit team Those staff members will already have access to the PSR (Pre-Sentence Report) and any recommendations from the judge, including RDAP. What the inmate needs to do:

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Subject: Residential drug abuse program (rdap)

The answer to this lies in the language of the PSR (pre-sentence report). If there is documented drug or alcohol abuse or dependency within 12 months prior to the crime, he will qualify. Absent this documentation in the report, it is very difficult to get the program. The judge's recommendation is not strong enough alone to coax the BOP to veer from their strict policy. Completing the program gets the inmate 12 months off their sentence and guaranteed six months

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Subject: Inmateaid website questions

If a scanned letter appears cut off in your account, the most common reason is that your inmate wrote on paper larger than the standard 8.5 x 11 size, such as legal paper. The scanning process is set up for standard letter-size pages, and anything larger may not capture the full content in the digital image. When this happens, InmateAid retains the original physical letter. Rescanning will not produce a better result if the issue is paper size, but

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Subject: Release questions

Several things can slow down or eliminate the possibility of early release, and most of them are within the inmate's control. Disciplinary infractions. Write-ups, shots, or incident reports are the most common reasons good time credits get taken away. A single serious infraction can cost an inmate months of earned credit. Repeated infractions can result in losing all accumulated good time and in some cases, adding time to the sentence through disciplinary segregation proceedings. Program non-participation. In both

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Subject: Prison violence

Possession of any weapon inside a correctional facility is a serious violation regardless of whether it was used to harm anyone. Intent and circumstances matter less than the fact of possession, and the consequences come from multiple directions at once. On the institutional side, an inmate found with a knife or any improvised weapon faces immediate placement in disciplinary segregation, loss of good time credits, and a formal incident report that becomes part of their permanent record. A weapon

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Subject: Commissary

Time in “the hole” (also called SHU or segregation) depends on the disciplinary charge and the hearing outcome. There is no fixed length. Typical ranges: Minor infractions: a few days to a couple of weeks Moderate offenses: several weeks Serious violations: a few months or longer in some cases The decision is made by a disciplinary hearing officer, and behavior while in segregation can also affect how long the stay lasts. Can they still write letters? Yes. Inmates in

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Subject: Send inmate mail

Beautiful 4"x6" color photos on glossy paper printed to the edge in a vibrant finish. They are brilliant!!

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Subject: Pending criminal charges

The Clerk of the Court in the county where the charges were filed is the right place to start. The clerk maintains the official court docket, which lists every case along with the judge assigned to hear it. Call the clerk's office, provide your friend's full legal name and approximate arrest date if you have it, and ask for the case docket information including the assigned judge. Once you have the judge's name, you can contact that judge's secretary

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Subject: Family services

This situation has several serious legal issues layered on top of each other, and you have more options than it may feel like right now. Here is where to focus. The recanting accuser is significant. If the person who accused your husband has admitted to lying, that is potentially powerful grounds for post-conviction relief. This needs to be in front of an attorney or an innocence organization as soon as possible. The Innocence Project and state-level innocence organizations take

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