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

If it is federal, the US Marshal service will transport him via airplane. They normally will fly into the FTC Oklahoma City facility which is situated on an airport tarmac. They will process him there for a day or more and then when there are enough eastbound transfers he will eventually get to his destination. The US Marshal is the most humane outfit. The air transport is efficient, speedy and unbelievably professional in it's method. If it is a state facility...

The right to appear before a judge in a reasonable amount of time is a constitutional protection, but what counts as reasonable varies by state and by the specific circumstances of the arrest. In most jurisdictions, an initial appearance or arraignment is supposed to happen within 48 to 72 hours of arrest. If your friend has been held significantly longer than that without any court appearance at all, something has stalled, and it is worth looking into. The most common reasons...

This is a frustrating situation because the failure to appear was not his fault. He was in custody and being moved between facilities on the day he was supposed to be in court. That kind of administrative mix-up happens, and the courts are not always quick to unwind it on their own. The no-bond hold exists because a judge or magistrate has decided, at least for now, that he is a flight risk based on the missed appearance. The fact that...

Yes, there are serial killers serving time in prisons across the United States and around the world. Not all serial killers receive the death penalty and those who are not executed, whether because their state does not have capital punishment, because a deal was made, or because the death sentence was not sought, end up serving life sentences in the general prison population or in protective custody. Some of the most well known serial killers in American history are alive and...

PC 3454 is not a charge for the stabbing itself. It is a post-release supervision statute, which means it relates to violations of conditions imposed after someone was already released from a prior prison sentence, not the underlying act of violence. Under California's criminal justice realignment, many people released from state prison are placed under Post-Release Community Supervision, or PRCS, which is managed at the county level rather than by state parole. PC 3454 governs how counties assess, monitor, and respond...

Call the Clerk of the Court in the county where he was charged. Court proceedings and their outcomes are public record, and the clerk's office can tell you what happened at the hearing, what charges are on file, what the next scheduled date is, and in many cases what the judge ordered. You do not need to be a family member or have any special status to access this information. Any member of the public can request it. Many counties also...

The Western Union money goes directly onto your inmate's books at the facility. It is his money to spend on commissary items, and at some institutions, it can also be used toward phone service through the jail's phone provider. It has no connection to InmateAid's services on your end. Letters, postcards, and the Inmate Response service are paid for separately through InmateAid directly. Right now that means a credit card transaction each time, which is admittedly not the most convenient setup....

The jail is telling you the truth. County and local jails that are housing federal pretrial detainees do not manage the federal court calendar and genuinely do not have access to that scheduling information. Federal cases are administered entirely through the federal court system which operates independently from local facilities. The place to look is PACER, which stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records. PACER is the federal judiciary's online system where all federal court filings, dockets, and scheduled hearings...

The nature of the charges, whether federal or state, does not determine where mail should be sent. What determines the mailing address is simply the physical location of the facility where the inmate is currently being held. The federal government does not maintain a separate network of holding facilities for every detainee facing federal charges. Instead, the US Marshals Service contracts with county jails, regional detention centers, and private correctional facilities to house federal detainees while their cases move through the...

It depends on the state that issued the warrant and how aggressively they choose to pursue it, and that calculation changes significantly based on the nature of the violation. When someone violates parole by failing to report rather than catching new charges, the issuing state has a decision to make. They can choose to extradite, meaning send law enforcement to pick the person up and transport them back to face the violation, or they can choose not to pursue extradition and...

From firsthand experience across multiple levels of the system, federal prison stands out as the most professionally run and humane of the three. Federal correctional officers are generally better trained, better compensated, and more consistent in how they apply the rules. The facilities tend to be better maintained and the overall culture is more orderly. State prison varies dramatically depending on the state, the funding available, and the specific facility. Private prisons sit somewhere in the middle and the experience...