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

The straightforward answer is that getting on that list as a girlfriend is going to be very difficult, and at most juvenile facilities it is not permitted at all under standard policy. Juvenile detention centers deliberately limit outside contact to immediate family during placement. The reasoning is that the time inside is meant to be a reset, a period where the young person works on themselves without the distractions and social dynamics from their life before detention. Girlfriends, friends, and peers...

This is one of the harder realities of juvenile facilities, and the answer is not what you are hoping to hear. Juvenile detention centers operate under much stricter contact rules than adult jails or prisons. The policies are designed around the assumption that juveniles need to be insulated from outside influences while they are in placement, and visitation and phone access is typically limited to immediate family only. That means parents, siblings, and grandparents. A girlfriend, regardless of how serious the...

Yes, and this is one of those situations where being in the hole is actually the best possible outcome given the circumstances. The hole, or segregation unit, serves two very different purposes that most people on the outside do not realize. It is used as punishment for rule violations, but it is also used as protective custody for inmates whose safety cannot be guaranteed in general population. When your son told staff he was scared for his life, he was essentially...

Furloughs are rare in the Arizona state prison system and should not be counted on as a realistic option for most inmates at Douglas or anywhere else in the ADCRR. A furlough is a temporary authorized release into the community, typically ranging from 24 hours to several days. In the states and systems that offer them at all, they are granted under very specific and limited circumstances. The two most common are a family death furlough to attend a funeral of...

Hair dye is a minor infraction especially in a camp, but contraband is a loosely used term in the incident reports. Contraband can be a weapon, drugs, obvious signs of operating a business, gambling records or ANYTHING not on the comissary list. Hair dye seems almost like a nuisance charge, we wonder whose bad-side did your husband get on. Our guess is that the SHU stay will be no more than two weeks and he might have some limitations on commissary purchases...

There will be some sort of form to fill out as you will probably need to somehow gain approval from the jail staff. You should call the facility to get the visiting days, the hours, the dress code and all the restrictions you want to know about ahead of arrival. If you know the name of the jail, look it up using our Prison Directory. Find the facility and click on the Visitation button on their page. The details should...

Commissary prices at Reception and Medical Center Lake Butler and Florida state facilities generally run about 15 to 20 percent higher than what you would pay at a standard retail store. That markup exists because the commissary is the only option available and the facility knows it. There is no competition and no alternative, so pricing reflects that reality. The product selection covers food items like ramen, chips, cookies, and canned goods, hygiene products including soap, shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste, writing...

Refusing to take a urine test in an Arizona state prison is treated as disobeying a direct order, which makes it a major violation. The classification is intentional. Without the ability to enforce orders, staff lose control of the facility, so the punishment is designed to be severe enough to discourage anyone else from trying the same thing. The first consequence is placement in Disciplinary Segregation, which goes by several names: the SHU, the Special Housing Unit, solitary confinement, or just...

Restricted housing is solitary confinement, known inside as the hole. It means he was cited for a rule violation and pulled out of general population as a disciplinary measure. The facility is not going to tell you much beyond confirming he is there, which is frustrating, but it is standard. How long it lasts depends entirely on what he did. There is no universal cap on restricted housing time. Some inmates serve a few days for minor infractions. Others spend weeks...

When an altercation occurs at any correctional facility, including Halawa in Hawaii, both participants are typically removed from the general population and placed in the Special Housing Unit. That placement comes with immediate and significant restrictions on all privileges, including phone access. In the SHU, phone access is reduced to one 15-minute call per week. That is the standard allowance across virtually every correctional system and it applies regardless of which facility or state the inmate is in. One call, fifteen...