Federal prison FAQ, for families # Visiting Getting approved, what to wear, what you can touch, whether to bring the children, and the drive home. Where this comes from I did the time. I did not do the waiting, and they are not the same job. Answers below tagged **Observed** are what I watched from the inside over eighteen months — whose people kept coming and whose stopped, what a man looked like walking back from the visiting room, what happened to the ones whose wives left. That is a real vantage point and it is not yours. Take those as testimony rather than instruction. If you have lived the other side of it and I have something wrong, [tell me](mailto:josh@federalprisondude.com?subject=Family%20FAQ%20correction) and I will fix it. The list ## Getting approved ### How do I get approved to visit? They start it. They submit your name to their case manager (the staffer who controls your release date), the institution mails you a visitor questionnaire, you complete it and send it back, and a background check runs. Complete it accurately and completely. Omissions read as concealment and are the usual reason for denial. ### How long does approval take? Weeks. Sometimes longer, and there is no status page to check. Start it before they report if you possibly can. Families who begin after they arrive routinely lose their first few months of visits to nothing but paperwork lag. ### Why was I denied? Usually an incomplete form, or something on your record. Ask their counselor (front-line staffer for phone, visits, jobs), by name, in a short specific call. A denial is not always final. Find out which of the two it was, fix the fixable one, and have them resubmit. ### Can I visit if I have a record? Usually, yes. A criminal record does not automatically disqualify you. It complicates approval and it slows it down. Prior incarceration generally requires additional authorization above the unit team, which takes longer and is granted more often than families expect. Disclose it on the form. Being caught omitting it is worse than whatever it was. ### Can I visit if I'm not family? Yes, within limits. Friends and associates can be approved, though the list is usually capped and non-relatives generally need to have known them before they were incarcerated. Clergy and attorneys sit outside the regular list. The rules are [PS 5267.09](/resources/program-statements/5267-09-visiting-regulations), and nearly every warden supplements them locally. ### How often can I come? Visits are allocated on a points system, with weekend days typically costing more points than weekdays. Some facilities require advance scheduling and some do not. Both the allocation and the schedule are facility-specific and they are in the handbook. If you are driving a long way, weekdays buy you more visits for the same points. The door ## Getting in ### What do I wear? Nothing resembling what inmates or staff wear. Khaki, olive, and grey are commonly banned outright, and some facilities restrict denim. No sheer fabric, no low necklines, no short skirts, no leggings as pants, no sleeveless tops. No hats. Closed-toe shoes. Underwire sets off the metal detector and has ended visits before they started. **When in doubt, dress like you are appearing in court in front of a judge who dislikes you.** People get turned away at the door after a six-hour drive over this, every weekend, at every facility. ### What can I bring in? Almost nothing. Identification, your car key, and a limited amount of money for the vending machines, usually in coins or a clear container. Everything else goes in a locker outside. Your phone stays in the car. ### Can I hug them? Hold their hand? A brief embrace and a kiss at the beginning and end of the visit. Hand-holding above the table during, at most places. Seating is assigned and you do not move it. Officers end visits over contact violations and they do not warn twice. Inside the room ## What it is actually like ### What's the visiting room actually like? I sat in one most weekends for a year and a half, so this part I can tell you exactly. It is a big bright room with rows of hard chairs bolted into position, facing each other in pairs. Fluorescent light, no windows worth the name, a wall of vending machines that is the entire menu, and an officer at a desk with a view of everything. It is loud in a specific way — forty families all talking at once, none of them able to be quiet, all of them having the same conversation. There is a photo setup at most places where you can buy a picture together. Do it. It is the only one you will get, and men keep those. Nobody is watching you the way you are afraid they are. Everyone in that room is having their own bad day. ### What should I expect from the first visit? Harder than either of you expects. They will look different. Neither of you will say what you planned to say, and you will both spend the drive there rehearsing something that does not happen. It is much easier the second time. That is not a consolation, it is a prediction, and it holds up almost universally. ### Why do I feel so terrible on the drive home? Observed I never made that drive, so take this as what I watched rather than what I felt. Every man on the compound came back from a good visit worse than they went in, and it was so consistent you could set a clock by it. The visit ends, the thing you have been holding together for weeks gets briefly real, and then it is taken away on a schedule somebody else set. Both sides of that door get the drop. Their version is a walk back to the unit; yours is a car. What I saw work: do not be alone with it for six hours if you can avoid it. Bring someone, or plan something for the other end. And do not solve the crash by visiting less — that trade looks rational and the men whose people made it did visibly worse. The children ## Bringing kids ### Can I bring the kids? They have to be approved like anyone else, and a birth certificate is often required. They stay with you throughout. Some visiting rooms have a children's area and some do not. Ask before you plan around one. ### Should I bring the kids? If the child wants to come. Not to make them feel better. [The kids section](/for-families/faq/kids) takes that apart properly. Next section — part 4 of 10 ### [Money](/for-families/faq/money) How to send it, how much they need, why some of it disappears, and what happens to your household on one income. **Need help with this? Just ask.** These pages cover the general rules. Your situation has details they don't. Email me a question. **Answers are free** , and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer. [josh@federalprisondude.com](mailto:josh@federalprisondude.com?subject=Family%20question) 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.