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

RDAP stands for the Residential Drug Abuse Program. It is a federal Bureau of Prisons program, meaning it exists specifically within the federal prison system and is not available at state facilities under that name or with those exact benefits. For federal inmates, RDAP is one of the most valuable programs available. Completing it can take up to 12 months off a sentence and guarantees six months of halfway house placement on the back end. That combination makes a significant difference...

What his mother told you is not accurate as a general rule, and you should not take her word for it without verifying directly with the facility. Visitation policies vary by institution, but restricting visits to legally married spouses and blood relatives only is not standard practice at most prisons and jails in this country. Facilities typically allow approved visitors who pass a background check, regardless of whether they are family by blood or marriage. Being a girlfriend, a fiancée, or...

It depends entirely on the facility and whoever processes the form on the receiving end. Some facilities will let something like this slide, particularly if the form is otherwise complete, legitimate, and clearly not an attempt to circumvent the process. A misdirected visitor questionnaire is a minor administrative hiccup, not a security concern, and staff with common sense will sometimes just process it and move on. Others will reject it on procedural grounds regardless of the circumstances. Facilities that run tight administrative...

Visits are never long enough. There are never enough visits. The lower the security, the better the visits are. Minimum security visitation is in a very relaxed state and they are at least two hours long. You visit on park bench-style set up. For federal prison, this was as good as it could get. The worst goes with the higher security facilities where there is no contact and the visits last minutes, not hours. We understand why, it's just a tough...

A facility shakedown is where the inmates are sequestered in an area for hours while the guards go through the facility, cell by cell, room by room, searching for contraband. They will turn beds upside down, they go into the ceiling where there is access, they check the kitchen, bathrooms, chapel... everywhere. After they have finished, the collection of contraband is displayed in some form to show the inmates that they will eventually find everything. If they can tie anything...

County jail visitation varies more than people expect, and Loudoun County has specific protocols worth knowing before you show up. Contact versus non-contact visits depend on the inmate's housing classification and the facility's current setup. Many county jails, including a number of Virginia facilities, use video visitation terminals or glass partition visits rather than contact visits for general population. That means you may be speaking through a phone handset with a glass or screen between you rather than sitting at a...

Loudoun County Adult Detention Center is a county jail, and like most county facilities its biggest challenge is not violence, it is boredom. County jails are not designed for long-term housing. There is limited programming, minimal structured activity, and a lot of hours with nothing to fill them. When you put dozens of people in a confined space with nothing to do, tension builds. Most conflict in county jail does not come from hardened criminals looking for trouble, it comes from...

Inmates may use the phone pretty much during all "waking hours". Phone lines are open at 6am and turn off at 11pm. Visitors to Hill Corrections Center will be required to produce photo identification and verification of date of birth. Please be sure to bring 2 forms of identification with you; these would include a current photo ID such as a driver’s license, a state ID card, government ID card, military ID/driver’s license, or acceptable documentation of non-U.S. citizenship including a...

This is a serious situation and the consequences are going to be significant on multiple levels. Work release is one of the most privileged statuses an inmate can have. It means the system trusted him enough to send him outside the walls with minimal supervision. Getting caught smuggling contraband back in is a direct betrayal of that trust, and the response from the facility and the courts will reflect that. The immediate consequence is the SHU. Expect several months in segregation at...

There is really no difference. They are all segregated custody from either an Administrative Order (AO) or a Disciplinary Order.(DO). The SHU is short for Special Housing Unit, Security Housing Unit or Segregated Housing Unit. and PC is "protective custody". It sounds like something happened that caused the administration to declare him for PC on an DO.  We interpret this to mean he was threatened (or threatened someone else) and it is being determined is he is a safety issue in the general population....

Being her husband is your strongest argument, and it is worth pursuing through the right channels. Standard visitor approval runs every applicant through a criminal background check, and a felony conviction combined with active probation will block approval through the normal process. That is the automatic result and it is not personal. The system flags anyone with a record, and someone on probation for the same crime that put their spouse inside is going to get denied at the standard level. The...

Shock incarceration, which is what New York's shock camp program is, exists specifically to get eligible inmates home faster than a standard sentence would. That is the whole point of the program, and if your boyfriend was accepted into it, that is genuinely good news. The standard New York shock program runs six months of intensive military-style programming inside the facility. It is physically and mentally demanding by design, covering drill, physical training, discipline, substance abuse treatment, and life skills. Inmates...

Yes, your fiance is right. In virtually every state prison system, the visitor is responsible for initiating the approval process, not the inmate. Before you can visit anyone at the Huntsville Unit or any Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility, you have to submit a visitor application. Once that application is in, your information gets run through the National Crime Information Center database, which is a federal criminal records system. That check is standard and it is thorough. If your record comes...

SHU inmates at Wasco State Prison are permitted one fifteen-minute phone call per week. That is the standard allowance for segregated housing in the California system, and it applies regardless of the reason for placement. One call, fifteen minutes, once every seven days. When that window comes up, make sure you are available to answer because missing it means waiting another full week. On visitation approval, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation processes visitor applications on a timeline that varies...