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

Phone access in jail is not a right, it is a privilege, and facilities set their own rules about how often inmates can call and for how long. What feels arbitrary or unfair from the outside is simply the reality of how custody works. At some facilities, particularly smaller or more restrictive jails, inmates may only be permitted one call every day or two, with calls cut off at 12 or 15 minutes. A 300-minute monthly allotment is a federal Bureau...

It has happened, but it is genuinely rare and the consequences for anyone caught are severe enough to make it an extreme risk that very few people are willing to take. Any sexual contact between an inmate and a staff member or outside contractor is a federal offense under the Prison Rape Elimination Act regardless of whether it appears consensual. The power dynamic between an incarcerated person and anyone who works in or enters a facility is considered inherently coercive under...

Balloons, decorations, and celebratory items cannot be sent to inmates at Kent County Jail or virtually any other correctional facility. The mail room will not accept them, and anything outside of approved mail formats gets rejected and returned. What you can send depends on the facility's specific mail policy, but greeting cards are generally permitted at most jails as long as they are standard flat cards without added embellishments like glitter, stickers, or attachments that could conceal contraband. Check with Kent...

The clerk of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was heard is the primary source for court records of any age. Every court maintains its own records archive, and the clerk's office is the official custodian of those documents. Here is how to approach it: Identify the correct court. You need to know whether the case was in a municipal, county, state, or federal court, and which specific courthouse handled it. If you know the approximate year and location of...

Yes. The InmateAid discount number cannot work independently of the prison's phone system. Every correctional facility operates under an exclusive contract with a phone provider, and all calls placed from inside must go through that provider's system. In this case that provider is GTL, also known as Global Tel Link. Here is exactly what needs to happen for the discount line to work: Open an account with GTL if you do not already have one. When setting up that account, use the...

Whether a call from a prison is billed as local or long distance has nothing to do with where you physically live. It is determined by whether your phone number falls within the same rate center as the facility. A rate center is a geographic designation used by phone carriers to calculate call pricing, and it does not always align with city or state boundaries. If you already have a Philadelphia area code number and your husband's facility is in the...

This is one of the more frustrating situations families encounter, and the fact that every format has been rejected suggests the issue is not about how the photo was sent but about the content itself or a specific facility policy around ultrasound images. Some county pretrial facilities have blanket restrictions on certain types of images that are not always clearly communicated to families. Ultrasound images, particularly 3D and 4D scans, occasionally get flagged by mail room staff who are unfamiliar with...

Being legally married does not provide any legal advantage in a criminal proceeding. Marriage is a civil status and has no bearing on how charges are filed, how a case is prosecuted, or how a sentence is determined. The hope that marriage somehow softens the court's approach to a criminal case is unfortunately not how the system works. Being from out of state can actually work against you in some circumstances. Local prosecutors and judges have established relationships with local defense...

Sending money to a US inmate from outside the country is a common challenge for international family members. Most US prison money transfer services require a US bank-issued card or a domestic account, which rules out the standard options for people overseas. InmateAid offers a solution specifically for international members. We handle the deposit on your behalf so you do not need a US bank account or card. Here is how the fee structure works: You decide the amount you want your...

Inmates receive three meals a day across all facility types, but the quality and variety vary considerably depending on where someone is incarcerated. Federal facilities generally have the best food in the system. Meals are planned by nutrition professionals and meet minimum caloric, protein, and carbohydrate standards established by the Bureau of Prisons. The food is institutional but consistent, and the nutritional baseline is maintained more reliably than in other systems. State prisons fall somewhere in the middle. Quality varies significantly from...