You are the one staying
Everything on this site written for the person on the outside — the wife, husband, parent, or adult child who is now responsible for a great deal more than they were last year. Your problems are different from theirs, they last longer, and almost nobody addresses them at all.
Looking for the material written for your person instead? That is the other half.
The one thing that explains the rest
The Bureau of Prisons will not proactively tell you anything. Not when your person moves, not when the release date changes, not when something goes wrong. Every piece of information you get, you will have gone and found.
That is the operating condition for the next several years. Once you accept it, most of what is on this page is just method.
Three depths, not three topics
The checklists, the FAQ, and the guide cover a lot of the same ground on purpose. They are not sequential and you are not meant to read all three. The checklists tell you what matters most and what it costs to get wrong. The FAQ answers a specific question in a paragraph. The guide explains the reasoning underneath both, in the order things will actually happen.
Most people arrive in a panic with one question, get it answered, and come back for the long version later. That is the right way to use this.
Start here if you have no time
If they are reporting soon and you read nothing else on this site, read this.
Look something up
Over a hundred questions families actually sent me, grouped so you can find yours.
Read it through, in order
One guide, twelve parts, running from before they report to after they are home.
The five you will keep coming back to
Not written for families specifically, but this is where families spend the most time.
Two warnings worth ten minutes
Families get sold these constantly, usually in the first weeks, usually when they are least able to evaluate them.
Still stuck?
These pages cover the general case. Yours will have details they don't. Email me the question. Answers are free, and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.
I answer in the order received, usually within a couple of days. I have a day job. If your situation genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults, so say so and we'll work it out.
If this helped, it'll help someone else's family too.