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

Commissary lists for federal prisons are available on InmateAid. Navigate to the facility's page on the site and scroll down to the Commissary Lists section. You will find itemized lists with current prices. Keep in mind that only the inmate can make purchases at commissary, typically once per week, and they use funds deposited into their inmate account. You can add money to that account through the approved deposit method for their facility, which InmateAid can also help you find. On...

Before you go in, many people seek out a "prison consultant". If you have the money, it's thousands and thousands of dollars for the same advice you can get here, reading actual former inmate's answers... for free. You want to make sure you have support, lots of support, from family and friends. It would help immensely if you can set up an inmate account in advance and put money into it. You will need the money to buy things from the commissary, use...

The timeline depends on where he transferred from. If the transfer was within the same prison system, meaning one Minnesota DOC facility to another, the intake process tends to move faster because his records, classification, and approved contacts are already in the system. Phone and visitation access can sometimes be restored within a few days in that scenario. If the transfer crossed agencies, such as coming from a county facility into the state system, or from another state's system, the processing...

It depends on the sentence length and the conditions set during release planning. For shorter sentences, going directly home is often possible if the inmate has an approved address, a job or plan for employment, and no other conditions requiring supervised housing. For sentences over two years, placement in a halfway house before full release is common and sometimes required as part of the standard reentry process. Halfway houses are not permanent. The counselors and staff there are motivated to move...

There are three reliable ways to stay connected, and each of them serves a different purpose. Letters and postcards are the most consistent option. A letter costs almost nothing to send, reaches the inmate through regular mail regardless of what is happening with their phone account, and gives them something physical to hold, read, and reread. If you want him to know you are thinking of him and reaching out, a letter is the most direct signal of that. InmateAid's letter...

The biggest no-no in jail is to talk about your case. People in jail have usually not been sentenced yet. Jail is not prison, it comes before prison. Inmates in jail are still fighting their cases, as are you. Talking to them about your case could end up putting you away. If you tell them something juicy enough, they'll call their attorney and provide the information they heard from you. The hope is that ratting on you gets them a lighter sentence. Prosecutors will...

You can pay someone's bond in most circumstances but when a protection order is involved, the situation requires careful attention to the specific language of that order before you do anything. Protection orders vary in what they prohibit. Some orders restrict the protected person from having any contact with the defendant including indirect contact through third parties. Others are more limited in scope. If your order specifically prohibits you from having any contact with him or from taking actions on his...

The honest answer is probably not, and almost certainly not in the way you are hoping. Conjugal visits, which are the only form of genuinely private time allowed between spouses in a prison setting, are available in only four states in the United States: California, Connecticut, New York, and Washington. Every other state has eliminated the program. If your boyfriend is not in one of those four states, marriage does not create any right to private time together regardless of...