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

Not through any outside channel, and that is by design. Inmates retain a degree of privacy in their communications that most people on the outside do not expect. You cannot call the facility and ask for a list of who your person has been talking to. The phone carrier will not share call logs with you. No portal lets a family member or friend pull up a contact history. What the facility does monitor is a different matter. Staff and investigators can...

That is not a question anyone outside your relationship can answer for you, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you. You know this person. You know whether his words have matched his actions before. You know whether this is the first time you are hearing something like this or the third. You know what his track record looks like when things were easy, before consequences arrived and made honesty feel like the smarter play. Prison changes some...

The honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on what she did with those two years inside, and you probably already know the answer better than you think. Parole boards are not complicated in what they look for. They want to see that an inmate followed the rules, stayed out of disciplinary trouble, and engaged with whatever programming her counselor recommended. Substance abuse treatment, educational courses, vocational training, anger management, whatever was on her program plan, completion of those things...

Getting caught with a cell phone in prison is one of the worst disciplinary situations an inmate can land in, and the consequences stack on multiple levels. At the facility level it is an immediate major infraction. That means disciplinary segregation, loss of privileges, and a serious entry in the inmate's record that follows them to every subsequent review. When that person sits in front of a parole board, the board sees everything, and a cell phone infraction signals exactly the...

First, take a breath. A month without a response does not mean what you are afraid it means. Getting adjusted to incarceration is genuinely hard in ways that are difficult to explain from the outside. The first weeks and months inside are disorienting, humbling, and emotionally exhausting. Some people shut down. Some are too proud to show vulnerability in a letter. Some are still trying to figure out who they are in this new environment before they can reach out to...

Home confinement has been one of the preferred release options for non-violent inmates during COVID-related early release programs, and it is possible that your husband's halfway house placement could shift to home confinement depending on the specific program authorizing his release and the BOP's current protocols. During the height of the pandemic the CARES Act gave the Bureau of Prisons expanded authority to place inmates on home confinement, and that authority was used more broadly for medically vulnerable and non-violent inmates...

Yes, you can send a letter to Joe Exotic #26154-017, whose legal name is Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage. His BOP Inmate ID is 26154-017. He is currently housed in a federal correctional facility. To send him a letter use InmateAid's letter service which handles addressing and delivery directly to his facility. You can also send him magazines, books, and photos through InmateAid. All mail to federal inmates goes through a mailroom screening process before delivery. Keep the contents appropriate and avoid any...