If you have someone locked up in Maryland, two questions come up fast: what can they buy, and what can you send. The answer depends on where they are held. A state prison run by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services works one way, a county jail works another, and a federal facility plays by its own rulebook. Here is how all three actually work, 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 facility takes no packages. Treat that as your baseline and the rest as extra.
Maryland state prisons (DPSCS)
In a DPSCS facility there is no cash. Money goes onto the incarcerated person's account through the Maryland Offender Banking System, and they spend it at the commissary.
The state uses Access Corrections for deposits. You can send money online, by phone at 866-345-1884, or at a lobby kiosk, and the option for people without a card is to mail a money order to the state's Lockbox in Baltimore. The Lockbox accepts money orders, approved vendor checks, and official business checks only, not personal checks, cash, letters, or packages. Two timing details matter: deposits generally post in about 48 hours, and any single deposit over $250 is held for 30 days before it is available. The commissary carries food, snacks, hygiene products, stationery and stamped envelopes, and basic clothing.
Care packages for DPSCS residents
Maryland does run a care-package program for its state prisons, through Access Securepak. Family and friends order from the approved catalog and the vendor ships directly to the facility for inspection. As with every state's program, you order from the vendor, not from home, and homemade or family-mailed boxes are not accepted.
That leads to the one warning worth repeating. Order only through the current approved vendor and within the posted limits and window, because programs and item lists change, and a package that does not match the current rules gets refused.
One Maryland-specific note before you assume "county"
Maryland has a wrinkle most states do not. The large detention center in Baltimore City is run by the state, by DPSCS, not by a county sheriff. So if your person is held in Baltimore City pretrial, they are under state banking and commissary rules through Access Corrections, not a local county vendor. Confirm whether the facility is state-run or county-run before you follow either set of instructions.
Maryland county jails
Outside the state system, county detention centers run their own deposit and commissary contracts, so the vendor and rules change from county to county.
A few real examples. Montgomery County caps family commissary orders at $25 a week, takes deposits at a kiosk by cash or card and certain government checks, does not accept money orders for commissary, and posts a firm weekly order deadline. Baltimore County holds funds in an escrow account with no set deposit minimum or maximum and caps commissary at $75 a week. Talbot County takes a money order made payable to the inmate, capped at $150, and card deposits through Access Corrections. City lockups often have no package program and allow commissary only.
The takeaway is simple: never assume a county jail uses the same vendor or rules as the state. Pull up that specific jail's page and confirm the deposit vendor, the spending cap, the cutoff, and the package policy before you send anything.
Federal facilities in Maryland
Maryland's federal footprint is small. The Bureau of Prisons facility in the state is FCI Cumberland, a medium-security prison with an adjacent minimum-security camp, out in Allegany County near the same area as the state's western prisons. Use the inmate locator to confirm your person is there. It runs on Bureau of Prisons rules, which are the same nationwide.
Funding works through the federal Trust Fund. You can send money online or by app through JPay, mail a money order or cashier's check made 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 in the federal system, and the inmate shops it in person on an assigned day each week, usually tied to their register number. You fund the account; they pick from what is in stock. The shelves cover food and drink mixes, hygiene, a limited clothing selection, stationery and stamps, some over-the-counter medicine, and at some facilities approved electronics.
On the money, general population inmates can spend up to $360 per month, and that limit resets monthly. Stamps, phone credits, and over-the-counter medicine generally fall outside the cap. In November and December the limit typically rises to $410 for holiday shopping. An inmate who refuses the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program gets knocked down 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. To find someone in federal custody, use the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, which searches by name or register number.
Staying connected
Across all three systems the pattern is the same. Funding an account is how someone buys what they need day to day, packages are tied to approved vendors and limits, and the rules shift by facility and by contract. In Maryland, the extra step is checking whether a Baltimore-area facility is state-run or county-run, because that decides which rules apply. The one thing that does not change is the mail. A letter and photos reach almost anyone inside, which makes it the most reliable way to show up for your person while you sort out the rest.