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

Lee County Detention Center operates under a strict and specific personal property policy that limits what inmates can have in their cells at any given time. The restrictions exist for practical reasons. Cell space is limited, and allowing unlimited personal property creates clutter that encroaches on cellmates' space and generates conflicts. Keeping the allowed item list tight is a deliberate management decision rather than an arbitrary rule. The current permitted items are clear and specific. Inmates may have up to 20...

There is no fixed timeline for the transfer, and that is one of the more frustrating realities families deal with after sentencing. The time your person has already spent in county absolutely counts toward the three-year sentence the judge imposed. Every day in county custody is credited regardless of whether the facility is classified as a jail or a penitentiary. That credit does not disappear when the transfer happens. As for when the actual transfer occurs, that depends entirely on bed availability...

First, you have to understand that this is not something that is granted often or to just any inmate. The inmate must be in a low to minimum custody classification with limited time left on their sentence. They must have a completely clean disciplinary record while incarcerated... and even that might not be enough to get a furlough to go to the funeral. Our advice is to have the inmate speak to their counselor and then their chaplain. It's not...

New charges filed against someone already incarcerated can come from two very different directions, and figuring out which one applies here determines where you look for information. The first possibility is an internal disciplinary matter handled within the facility by a Disciplinary Hearing Officer. This covers rule violations and incidents that occur inside the house of corrections itself. If that is the case, call the facility and ask to speak with his counselor. Explain that you received a call about new...

Blackout? Or are you referring to lock down?  A lockdown in prison basically means that you are confined to a cell for 24 hours a day. There is no outside recreation, church, library, school, or work for most individuals. The only people that work during a lock down are what are called critical workers for jobs that are considered essential to running the prison. Some examples are kitchen workers, infirmary workers, some "orderly" positions that clean (sweep, mop, showers) the housing units....

No. Accidentally declining a call or contacting the prison from your end does not put your inmate's phone privileges at risk. Phone privilege loss is tied entirely to the inmate's own conduct, not to actions taken by people on the outside. In Arkansas and everywhere else, inmates lose phone access for specific infractions they commit themselves. Saying something prohibited on a recorded call, causing a disturbance while using the phone or waiting in line, misusing or damaging the phone equipment, or...

Yes I did. I had a 96 month sentence and lost my wife at 19 months into the bid. Most women are not ride or die, not that I would expect them to wait because this crime was my doing, not hers. It killed me for a few months but I realized that life was not over and that I would get out someday. I worked on myself, my mind and when I was released I won her back :) ...

Video visitation has become increasingly common in correctional facilities over the past decade, driven largely by private companies that secure exclusive contracts with individual jails and prisons to provide the service. Whether it is available to your inmate depends entirely on whether the specific facility has signed one of those contracts. County jails have been among the earliest and most aggressive adopters of video visitation, in part because the technology allows facilities to reduce the staffing and security costs associated with...

The most likely explanation is that your son is in the SHU, the Special Housing Unit, which is the federal Bureau of Prisons term for disciplinary or administrative segregation. When an inmate is placed in the SHU, privileges are significantly restricted across the board. Phone access is typically suspended or severely limited, often reduced to one fifteen-minute call per week. Commissary is restricted. Movement is essentially nonexistent. The fact that video visits are still available while phone calls are not is...

Serving time sucks. It's boring and you are cut off from the world you knew before going in. For me, it felt like i had died but i'm stuck watching my family and friends live on without me. The first year seemed like forever. But, as you point out, the place becomes a home and you adapt to your surroundings. The worst time is when there is something happening outside that you can't attend. For me I missed my mother's...