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

Transfer decisions are among the most difficult things for families to influence from the outside, and the system offers very little transparency about why a specific request was denied. After 23 years of incarceration and 11 years at the same facility, a denial feels particularly frustrating, but the reality is that these decisions are made internally and the reasoning is rarely shared with the inmate or their family. That said, there are still some steps worth taking. Your husband can and should...

There are three ways phone calls work from a county jail, and understanding the difference between them matters because the cost varies dramatically depending on which option you use. The first is the inmate paying from their own account. If money has been deposited onto their books, the cost of each call gets deducted directly from their trust account when they dial. This is the standard setup and the one most families use once they have funded the account. The second is...

Being on probation does not automatically disqualify someone from visiting an incarcerated person, but it does add a layer of requirements that have to be addressed before any visit can happen. The first step is disclosure. When you apply for visitation, you are required to disclose your probation status on the application. Do not leave it off. Facilities run background checks on all visitation applicants, and an omission is treated far more seriously than the underlying offense. Honesty upfront gives you...

Securus Technologies holds the exclusive contract at East Central Arkansas Community Correction Center in West Memphis, which means there is no choice between carriers. Every call your inmate makes goes through Securus, regardless of what number they dial. That monopoly is not going away. What you can control is the rate Securus charges for those calls, and that rate is determined entirely by the phone number being dialed. Securus structures its pricing by number type, and the difference between the most...

If your person has been moved from a Texas state or federal facility to a correctional facility at a military installation, the most likely explanation is that they are active duty military or have a military background that makes them subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice in addition to, or instead of, the civilian criminal system. Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state are on opposite ends of the country, so knowing which one...

The new visitation week starts on Monday. That means your visit count resets at the beginning of each Monday and you have a fresh set of visits available for the week running Monday through Sunday. If you visited on Wednesday and Saturday last week, both of those counted against last week's allotment. Starting Monday you are clear to schedule visits again according to whatever the facility allows per week. A couple of things worth confirming directly with Brazos County Detention Center before...

Yes, and the process is more structured than most people realize. When an inmate has an outstanding warrant from another jurisdiction, that jurisdiction places what is called a detainer on them. A detainer is a formal legal hold that notifies the facility currently housing the inmate that another agency has a claim on them. It essentially says do not release this person without notifying us first. Once the current sentence or custody situation is resolved, or sometimes while it is still ongoing...