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

InmateAid is the starting point for finding the cheapest rate available for calls from whatever facility your son is in at Trenton, Tennessee. Here is how it works. The jail or prison where your son is housed contracts with a single phone carrier, and that carrier sets the rates based on the number being dialed. Depending on where you are located in the Selmer and Savannah area and what area code your number carries, you may already be at a local...

You can try calling, but do not count on it working. In most facilities, the rules prohibit staff from modifying an inmate's approved phone list based on a request from an outside caller. The phone list exists as a security measure and changes to it are supposed to go through the inmate, not through family or friends calling in. That said, some staff members will make an exception for a simple request like adding a phone number, particularly if you...

Home incarceration is one step removed from the halfway house. Offenders on home confinement wear a monitoring device usually on their ankle (i wore mine on my wrist, it looked like a watch and no one knew the difference) which is a conversation-starter for sure. The home confinement recipient must have a job and an approved residence with a verified landline telephone. Here is a typical day You wake up at least once in the middle of the night to a call...

The InmateAid discount phone service replaces the high per-minute rate with a flat rate of $0.21 per minute. There is no separate connection fee under that structure. Your inmate still places the call through Securus using the InmateAid forwarding number, and the funds still come from his Securus account, but the rate he is charged is dramatically lower. Here is what the math looks like on a 15-minute call at your current rate: $1.85 connection plus $0.88 per minute for 15...

InmateAid does not touch your inmate's call card balance directly. The way it works is that InmateAid reduces what Securus charges for each call, so less money comes out of the account per call rather than InmateAid drawing from it separately. Here is the math on your specific situation. Right now you are paying $1.36 to connect plus $0.66 per minute. On a 15-minute call that works out to roughly $11.26 per call. With an InmateAid number, Securus charges $0.21 per...

The honest answer is that it depends on how strictly Crawford County Jail runs its background checks, and the only way to know for certain is to call them directly before you show up. When you arrive at a facility for visitation, most jails run your identification through the NCIC database, which is the national criminal information system. That check will surface your probation status regardless of which county it is in. Crawford County having stricter rules than your home county...

There is an important distinction in this question worth clarifying before anything goes out. If you are mailing a letter yourself from home, yes, you absolutely need a stamp on the envelope. You pay the postage on your end as the sender. The facility does not accept postage due mail and will not pay for incoming letters. A standard first class stamp handles a regular letter to any US address including FCC Coleman in Florida. What you cannot send into a federal...

Yes, a stamp is required. Every piece of mail going into a federal prison or any correctional facility must have postage affixed before it is sent. No facility accepts mail with postage due or pays for incoming mail on behalf of the sender. That is not how the postal system works for correctional facilities or for anyone else. A standard first-class stamp covers a regular letter going anywhere in the United States, including FCC Coleman in Sumterville, Florida. If you are...

The commissary lists vary from facility to facility. If you look at this COMMISSARY LIST from a BOP facility, you can see that the prices are not that out of line from a store you'd shop in on the outside. The average weekly amount should never exceed what you can afford. The inmates can survive without extras from the commissary, however, it is really great if you are able to add money and it will definitely help him be more comfortable. We recommend...