If you have someone locked up in Delaware, two questions come up fast: what can they buy, and what can you send. Delaware answers them more simply than most states, because of how the system is built. Here is how it actually works, so you are not guessing or wasting money.
One thing worth saying up front. The most dependable way to stay in touch with anyone inside is the mail. A letter and a few printed photos get through when an account is short or when a deposit is still processing. Treat that as your baseline and the rest as extra.
How Delaware is different
Delaware runs a unified state system. There are no county jails, even though the state has three counties, because the Delaware Department of Correction operates every secure facility itself, holding people awaiting trial and people serving sentences under one agency. The DOC runs four secure facilities, three for men and one for women, plus a network of community corrections centers. That makes things simpler than the county-by-county patchwork in most states.
Delaware state facilities (DOC)
In a Delaware DOC facility there is no cash. Money goes onto the inmate's trust account, and they spend it at the commissary.
The state uses ViaPath, also known as GTL, for deposits. There are three ways to add money: at a kiosk in the gatehouse or main entrance of each facility, online through ViaPath, or by mailing a money order to ViaPath using their form. One thing to get right: do not mail a money order to the facility itself, and do not use third-party services that are not the state's vendor, or the deposit can be lost or delayed. Online deposits are usually available quickly. You will need the inmate's name and SBI number.
Deposit amounts are often set in a fairly low range per transaction, so if you are used to sending a few hundred dollars at once, check the current limit first. Tablet, phone, and video services run through the same ViaPath family of products. The commissary carries the usual: food and snacks, hygiene products, stationery and stamps, and basic items. People verified as indigent receive basic hygiene items and writing materials at no cost.
Care packages for Delaware inmates
Delaware does not run a family care-package program the way some states do. There is no catalog of boxes to order from home, and outside packages mailed by family or friends are not accepted. The way you provide items is to fund the inmate's account so they can buy what they need from the commissary themselves.
That leads to the one warning worth repeating. If anyone tells you to ship a package to a Delaware facility, verify it with that facility first, because outside packages are generally refused and the commissary is the real channel.
A note on counties
Because Delaware is a unified system, there is no separate county-jail layer to learn. Whether your person is awaiting trial or serving a sentence, they are in a Delaware DOC facility, and you are dealing with the DOC and its vendor. The only thing outside that is a brief stay in a local police lockup, which holds people very short-term.
Federal custody and Delaware
Here is a Delaware-specific point. There is no Bureau of Prisons facility anywhere in the state. If your person is sentenced on a federal charge, they will be housed at a federal facility in another state, often in the surrounding region such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Maryland. Use the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator to find exactly where, because that determines everything that follows.
Once they are in the federal system, Bureau of Prisons rules apply, and those rules are the same nationwide:
Funding goes through the federal Trust Fund. You can send money online or by app through JPay, mail a money order or cashier's check payable to the Federal Bureau of Prisons with the inmate's full name and register number on it to the national lockbox, or use Western Union. No cash, no personal checks.
The commissary is the only store, and the inmate shops it in person on an assigned day each week. General population inmates can spend up to $360 per month, resetting monthly, rising to $410 in November and December for the holidays. Stamps, phone credits, and over-the-counter medicine generally fall outside the cap. An inmate who refuses the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program is limited to roughly $25 per month.
Federal care packages are not allowed. The Bureau prohibits outside food, clothing, or hygiene packages from family or friends. The narrow exceptions are publications shipped directly from a publisher or approved retailer, religious items cleared through the chaplain, and legal materials from an attorney or court.
For messaging, the federal system uses an email tool families reach through the CorrLinks portal, reviewed by staff and not confidential. The same inmate locator that finds your person is how you confirm an out-of-state placement.
Staying connected
The pattern in Delaware is straightforward. For everyone in state custody you are dealing with one system: fund the trust account through ViaPath, and let your person buy from the commissary, since there is no outside package program. Federal cases run through facilities in other states. Through all of it, the steadiest way to show up for your person is the mail, which reaches them whether they are in a Delaware facility or a federal one across a state line.