INMATEAID EDITORIAL ARTICLE
Schema: Article + FAQPage
Internal links: Maryland inmate search, send money, visitation guide (DPSCS), Staying Connected hub, Maryland reentry resources
SOURCING NOTE: DPSCS phone (official DPSCS Incarcerated Individual Phone Services page dpscs.maryland.gov; GTL/ViaPath via ConnectNetwork authorized deposit + account management portal statewide; AdvancePay prepaid recommended; ConnectNetwork contact 877-650-4249; ConnectNetwork mobile app available; low-balance text notifications + auto-reload available; calls monitored/recorded; FCC rate caps apply; DPSCS not in charge of setting up phone accounts - ConnectNetwork does); video visits (official DPSCS Incarcerated Individual Visitation Services page; MICROSOFT TEAMS used for virtual social visitation - replaced Skype; DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form required before virtual visit; JCI Jessup video visits Aug 15 2025 update: Tue-Fri 1:00-2:20 PM and 4:40-9:00 PM, 15 minutes duration); visitation (official DPSCS facility pages; max 2 visits/week at multiple facilities = ONE in-person + ONE video visit; MRDCC alternates weekly in-person vs Microsoft Teams weeks - each 1 hour regular / 30 min disciplinary segregation; JCI in-person Sat/Sun/Mon 1 hour, schedule by calling 410-799-6100 ext 1204 weekdays 9 AM-1 PM only; ECI Eastern Shore: 2 visits/week Sat/Sun 9 AM-2 PM slots (9:00/10:45/12:30), up to 5 visitors max 3 adults OR 3 children, call 410-845-4400; MCTC Hagerstown: 1 non-contact visit/week Sat/Sun, DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form for video; all visitors must clear metal detector; DPSCS views visitation as privilege); mail (official DPSCS mail services page; include facility acronym + sender name + return address; governed by DPSCS mail policy); DPSCS uses "incarcerated individuals (IPs)"; structure (JCI Jessup; MCTC Hagerstown; ECI Westover Eastern Shore; MRDCC Baltimore; MCI-W Jessup women's; BCBIC Baltimore Central Booking; Patuxent Institution; WCI Cumberland; NBCI Cumberland; Dorsey Run CF; HQ 300 E. Joppa Rd. Towson MD 21286; DPSCS main 410-339-5000); BOP federal Maryland (Cumberland FCI/USP large western MD; federal courts Baltimore; BOP TRULINCS/CorrLinks 300 min/month, 15-min call cap, $0.06/min audio per FCC Jan 2025, TRULINCS $0.05/min compose, 30 contacts max, no attachments); county/city detention (Baltimore City Detention Center; Baltimore County, Montgomery, Prince George's, Anne Arundel largest; ConnectNetwork/GTL common across Maryland jails).
SAFETY/EDITORIAL GUARDRAILS: Voice = knowledgeable formerly-incarcerated parent, warm, direct, personal. Maryland structural hooks: (1) Microsoft Teams for video visits - completely unique in the series, different setup from Securus/ViaPath; (2) alternating in-person/Teams weekly schedule at MRDCC intake; (3) two visits per week = one in-person + one video at multiple facilities = genuinely parent-friendly when understood. DPSCS uses "incarcerated individuals" mirrored. Scott's firsthand woven as narrative. No em dashes, no smart quotes, no double hyphens.
Parenting From Prison in Maryland
Maryland uses Microsoft Teams for video visits. That is not a misprint. While most states use Securus, ViaPath, or a similar corrections-industry provider for video visitation, Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services built its virtual visit program on Microsoft Teams, replacing an earlier Skype-based system. If your family downloads the Securus app or creates a GTL account expecting to video-call you, they are going to be disappointed. The video visit goes through Teams. The setup is different. The form is different. The process needs to happen before the first video session, not during it.
That is the headline for Maryland. But the more important headline for parents is this: Maryland allows a maximum of two visits per week at many of its facilities, and that two-visit cap is explicitly one in-person visit plus one video visit. Not one or the other. Both, if the family uses them both. That is a parent-friendly policy that more than doubles the contact opportunity for families who understand it and use it.
This guide covers how the Maryland system works for parents, how to set up both channels, and what to do with the time when you have it.
Phone Calls Through ConnectNetwork
Phone calls at Maryland state correctional facilities run through **GTL/ViaPath** via **ConnectNetwork**, which is the authorized deposit and account management portal statewide. Your family does not set up a phone account through DPSCS directly. DPSCS explicitly states it is not in charge of creating phone accounts. ConnectNetwork does. Your family reaches ConnectNetwork at **(877) 650-4249** or through the ConnectNetwork app or website.
The recommended account type is an **AdvancePay** prepaid account, which lets the family control which phone numbers you can call and ensures funds are available when you dial. The account activates as soon as it is funded. Once active, you can receive calls. Families can sign up for low-balance text notifications so the account does not go dark without warning. Auto-reload is also available to automatically replenish the account when it drops below a set threshold, which removes the risk of missing a call because the account ran out during the week.
Calls are monitored and recorded. FCC rate caps apply. The call is outgoing from your end. Your family cannot call in.
Microsoft Teams for Video Visits: The Setup Your Family Needs to Know
Before any video visit can take place, the family member must complete and submit the **DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form** with valid information. This is a separate requirement from the in-person visitor application. The form must be on file before the virtual visit can be scheduled. Tell your family about this immediately, because a family who skips this step will be unable to join the first video session even if they have a Microsoft Teams account ready.
Once the form is submitted and processed, video visits are conducted through Microsoft Teams. At Jessup Correctional Institution, as of August 15, 2025, video visits run Tuesday through Friday in two windows: 1:00 PM to 2:20 PM and 4:40 PM to 9:00 PM. Each video visit is **15 minutes** in duration at JCI. Scheduling is done through the facility. At MRDCC, the intake and diagnostic center in Baltimore, visits alternate by week: one week is in-person, the next is Microsoft Teams, in a rotating weekly pattern.
The 15-minute video visit is shorter than what some other states provide, but it is available on weekdays, which means a parent can have a video call with a child on a Tuesday evening when the child is home from school, without anyone missing work or school to travel to the facility. The Tuesday evening window at JCI closes at 9:00 PM. For a child who gets home from school at 3:30, that is a wide window of opportunity.
Your family needs: a Microsoft Teams account (free), the Acknowledgement Form on file, and a device with a camera. That is it. The setup is simpler than most video visit platforms in the series, because Teams is already familiar to many families from school and work.
Two Visits Per Week: Using Both Channels
At Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, Jessup Correctional Institution, and other facilities, the visit policy is explicitly: **maximum two visits per week, consisting of one in-person visit and one video visit**. These are not interchangeable. One does not substitute for the other. A family who uses both gets twice the contact.
For a parent with young children, here is what that looks like in practice: a Saturday in-person visit where the children can see you across a table, and a Thursday evening Microsoft Teams call where your child tells you about something that happened at school this week. The in-person visit is the anchor. The video call is the thread that keeps the relationship moving between anchors.
For families who live far from the facility, the video call may carry more of the weekly contact weight than the in-person visit. Jessup and the cluster of Maryland facilities in and around Jessup are not easily accessible from western Maryland. The Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown is closer to families in the western counties but far from the Baltimore metro. Eastern Correctional Institution on the Eastern Shore is separated from Baltimore by the Chesapeake Bay. For families navigating those distances, knowing that the video visit does not eat into the in-person visit is not a small thing.
MRDCC: The Intake Facility and the Alternating Schedule
The Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center in Baltimore is where many incoming Maryland state inmates are processed. At MRDCC, the visit schedule alternates weekly: one week is in-person visits, the next week is Microsoft Teams virtual visits, and the pattern rotates. Regular visits are one hour. Disciplinary segregation visits are 30 minutes.
This alternating structure is unusual and worth knowing before your family drives to Baltimore expecting an in-person visit during a Microsoft Teams week, or tries to set up a Teams call during an in-person week. The MRDCC website publishes the current schedule. Have your family check it before planning any visit.
The intake period at MRDCC is where the communication rhythm gets established. Use whatever channel is available each week to reach your children. During the in-person weeks, get the family in if possible. During the Teams weeks, make sure the Acknowledgement Form is filed and the Teams session is scheduled. The alternating structure does not mean reduced access. It means planned access, and planning is what you can do from inside.
Scheduling and the Phone Window
At Jessup, in-person visits are scheduled by calling **410-799-6100 (extension 1204)** during weekdays Monday through Friday between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM only. No weekends. No holidays. If your family calls outside that window, they will not be able to schedule. In-person visits run Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, one hour each.
At Eastern Correctional Institution, visiting runs Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM in three time slots (9:00 AM, 10:45 AM, 12:30 PM, with 30 slots each). Scheduling is done by calling 410-845-4400 Monday through Wednesday from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM for the upcoming weekend. Up to five visitors per visit, no more than three adults or three children in the group.
Know your facility's scheduling window and communicate it to your family. The scheduling call is not something they can figure out from the facility website without guidance. Walk them through it in a letter. Tell them the phone number, the extension, and the days and hours the window is open. A family who misses the Monday-Wednesday scheduling window at ECI loses the weekend visit. That is a week of contact that did not have to be lost.
The Letter in Maryland
The mail channel exists alongside every digital channel and does something none of them do: it arrives as an object with your handwriting on it. Maryland's mail rules require the envelope to include the facility acronym and the sender's name and return address. All mail is inspected before delivery.
Write to each child individually. One letter per child, their name at the top, their life inside it. Ask a real question. Give them something to respond to. The child who writes back is in a correspondence with their parent, and a correspondence is a relationship even when it travels through a corrections mailroom.
Maryland is a small state with diverse geography: from the Chesapeake Bay to the western Appalachians, from the Baltimore metropolitan area to the rural Eastern Shore. Your children live inside that landscape. Write to the season they are in, to the thing that is happening in their world right now. A letter that lands in the specific geography of a child's actual week is more powerful than a general letter about love and missing them, as true as those things are.
School in Maryland: What You Can Insert Yourself Into
Maryland runs one of the most educationally diverse school systems in the country, with high-performing suburban districts in Montgomery and Howard counties alongside urban schools in Baltimore City and rural schools on the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland. Your children are in one of these systems, with teachers and subjects and pressures specific to their school.
Use that specificity. Ask the name of the teacher. Ask what unit they are studying in science. Ask what book they are reading in English. Then reference it in the next letter: I know something about that period in history, here is what I remember. Or: the book you are reading has one of my favorite characters, tell me what you think of the ending. That kind of engaged, specific participation in a child's school life is parenting, and it travels through the mail as well as anything travels anywhere.
For Maryland families with access to the child's school records: share progress reports and notes home with the incarcerated parent through letters or phone calls. The parent who knows the specific grade, the specific subject, and the specific teacher is a parent who is showing up for the child in a way the child can feel even when the parent is not physically present.
For the Family Holding Maryland Together
Two things your family needs to do immediately: set up the ConnectNetwork account for phone calls and submit the DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form for video visits. These are separate steps. Both need to happen before the channels are open.
The ConnectNetwork account is straightforward: call 877-650-4249 or use the app, create an AdvancePay account, fund it, and you are ready to receive calls. Set up auto-reload so the account does not go silent during a week when the balance runs out.
The Acknowledgement Form for video visits is available through the DPSCS visitation services page. Complete it, submit it, and wait for confirmation before attempting to schedule a Teams session. The session cannot happen without the form on file.
Then use both visits each week. The in-person visit on the weekend and the Microsoft Teams call on a weekday evening are different experiences of the same relationship, and children benefit from both. The in-person visit is physical proof that the parent exists in three dimensions. The video call keeps the relationship moving in real time between visits.
Hold the line on keeping the incarcerated parent present in the children's lives as someone they have permission to love and full access to through both channels. Maryland has given you two visits per week. Use them both.
Federal Prison in Maryland: Cumberland
The federal complex at Cumberland in western Maryland includes a United States Penitentiary and a Federal Correctional Institution. Cumberland is in the mountains of Allegany County, a long drive from the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area where most Maryland federal defendants' families live. For a family in Silver Spring or Baltimore, Cumberland is over two hours each way.
**Phone.** Three hundred minutes per month, each call capped at 15 minutes at $0.06 per minute under the 2025 FCC rates, plus 100 additional minutes in November and December. Every minute costs money. One child per call, full attention, one real question, I love you at the end.
**TRULINCS and CorrLinks.** The BOP email platform costs $0.05 per minute to compose on your end and is free for the family. Up to 30 approved contacts, text only, no attachments. For the parent at Cumberland whose family is two-plus hours away, the TRULINCS email is the daily connection that the in-person visit cannot provide every week.
FAQ
**Why does Maryland use Microsoft Teams for video visits instead of Securus or ViaPath?** Maryland DPSCS replaced its earlier Skype-based virtual visit system with Microsoft Teams for all virtual social visitations. Teams is a free, widely available platform that most families already have or can easily install. The setup requires completing the DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form before any virtual session can be scheduled.
**How many visits can my family have per week in Maryland?** At many Maryland DPSCS facilities, including Jessup Correctional Institution and MCI-W, the maximum is two visits per week: one in-person and one video visit. These are separate channels, not interchangeable. A family that uses both gets contact twice per week, not once.
**How do I set up the ConnectNetwork phone account?** ConnectNetwork is GTL/ViaPath's authorized deposit and account management portal for DPSCS facilities. Your family calls 877-650-4249 or uses the ConnectNetwork app or website to create an AdvancePay prepaid account. Once the account is funded, it is active and ready to receive calls. DPSCS does not set up phone accounts; ConnectNetwork does.
**What is the MRDCC visitation schedule?** The Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center in Baltimore alternates weekly between in-person visits and Microsoft Teams virtual visits. Regular visits are one hour. Check the MRDCC facility page on the DPSCS website for the current week's schedule before traveling or scheduling a Teams session.
**How do I schedule an in-person visit at Jessup Correctional Institution?** Call 410-799-6100 (extension 1204) Monday through Friday between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM. No weekend or holiday scheduling is available by phone. In-person visits at JCI are held Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
**What do I need for my family to video-visit me in Maryland?** They need a Microsoft Teams account (free), a device with a camera, and the completed DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form on file before scheduling. The form is available on the DPSCS visitation services page at dpscs.maryland.gov.
**What is the federal situation at Cumberland, Maryland?** The Cumberland federal complex includes a USP and FCI in western Maryland. BOP rules apply: 300 phone minutes per month with 15-minute call caps at $0.06 per minute, plus TRULINCS email through CorrLinks at $0.05 per minute on the inmate's end, free for families, up to 30 approved contacts and text only.
[Affiliate handling: Product-light parenting spoke - NO external affiliate links. Internal CTAs only (standard 5): Maryland inmate search, send money, visitation guide DPSCS, Staying Connected hub, Maryland reentry resources. SOURCING: DPSCS official pages (dpscs.maryland.gov): Phone Services page (ConnectNetwork = GTL/ViaPath authorized deposit portal statewide; AdvancePay prepaid recommended; 877-650-4249; low-balance text notifications; auto-reload; ConnectNetwork mobile app; DPSCS not in charge of setting up accounts; calls monitored/recorded; FCC rate caps); Visitation Services page (Microsoft Teams replaces Skype for all virtual social visitation; DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form required before virtual visit); JCI facility page (max 2 visits/week = ONE in-person + ONE video; in-person Sat/Sun/Mon 1 hour; schedule by calling 410-799-6100 ext 1204 weekdays 9 AM-1 PM only; video via Teams Tue-Fri 1:00-2:20 PM + 4:40-9:00 PM updated Aug 15 2025, 15 min duration); MRDCC facility page (alternates weekly in-person vs Microsoft Teams; regular visits 1 hour; disciplinary segregation 30 min); ECI facility page (2 visits/week Sat/Sun 9 AM-2 PM slots 9:00/10:45/12:30 30 slots each; 5 visitors max no more than 3 adults OR 3 children; call 410-845-4400 Mon-Wed 10 AM-2 PM); MCTC facility page (1 non-contact visit/week Sat/Sun; DPSCS Acknowledgement Form for video); MCI-W (max 2 visits/week = ONE in-person + ONE video); mail (facility acronym + sender name + return address required on envelope; DPSCS mail policy); DPSCS uses "incarcerated individuals (IPs)"; structure (JCI Jessup; MCTC Hagerstown; ECI Westover Eastern Shore; MRDCC Baltimore; MCI-W Jessup; BCBIC Baltimore; Patuxent; WCI Cumberland; NBCI Cumberland; Dorsey Run; HQ 300 E. Joppa Rd. Towson MD 21286; 410-339-5000); BOP Maryland (Cumberland USP/FCI; TRULINCS/CorrLinks 300 min/month + 100 Nov-Dec, 15-min cap, $0.06/min audio per FCC Jan 2025, TRULINCS $0.05/min compose, 30 contacts max, no attachments). GUARDRAILS: no em dashes, no smart quotes, no double hyphens; warm/direct/personal voice; Microsoft Teams video visits as structural hook; alternating MRDCC schedule + two-visit cap understanding as practical urgency. Scott firsthand woven as narrative. NOTE for Poorwa: verify Microsoft Teams still DPSCS virtual visit platform; verify DPSCS Video Visitation Acknowledgement Form requirement still current; verify ConnectNetwork 877-650-4249 still current; verify JCI video visit hours Aug 2025 update is still current schedule; verify alternating MRDCC schedule still in effect; verify max 2 visits/week = 1 in-person + 1 video is current policy across major DPSCS facilities; len()/character check before publish.]