What's happening

The Bureau's inmate locator, searchable by name or by register number. It shows which facility they are at and a projected release date.

It does not show their halfway house date, which is the date you actually care about, and the two can differ by many months. That distinction has its own section.

It is their eight-digit federal identifier, assigned once and permanent. Five digits, a dash, three digits.

Inside the system it identifies them more reliably than their name does. Mail without it does not arrive. Money without it does not land. Visiting forms without it do not process. Get it off the judgment, write it somewhere you will not lose it, and use it on everything.

Several days is normal. A week is common.

They arrive with no phone account, no approved contact list, and no messaging access, and none of that exists until staff set it up. The silence is administrative, not a sign that something went wrong.

No. You will not get an answer, and it is the one call that reliably annoys the people you are going to need later.

Save the calls for things that are documentable and specific. Working the system covers how to spend that credit.

They will not, ever, proactively. That is an operating condition rather than an oversight, and adjusting to it early saves you a lot of wasted anger.

Every piece of information you get about their sentence, you will have gone and found. Plan accordingly and keep a log of who told you what.

Security level, and it changes almost everything about their day.

• Camp (minimum). No fence. Dormitory housing, work details off the compound, the most movement and the least supervision.
• Low. Double fence. Dorm or cubicle housing, a large population, and the level most white-collar and drug cases land at. There is a whole guide to what a low is actually like.
• Medium. Cells, higher perimeter security, more controlled movement, more lockdowns.
• High (penitentiary). Cells, the tightest control, and a genuinely different environment.

They are scored into one of these by a points system, not by anyone's judgment. PS 5100.08 is the scoring sheet.

Partly. The statute directs the Bureau to place them as close as practicable to their release residence, and within 500 driving miles of it where practicable. “Practicable” is doing a great deal of work in that sentence.

What overrides it in practice: their security level, bed space at the nearest facility that matches it, medical care needs, any separation orders, and programming like RDAP. Nobody will walk you through which of those applied.

What you can do is ask their case manager to note the release address you actually want, because that address is the anchor the 500 miles is measured from.

Yes. They request a nearer-release transfer through their unit team, and it takes clean conduct, a matching security level, and bed space.

The lever most families never use: the listed release address. Changing it to one closer to where you want them changes what “close to home” means in their file. They have to make that request; you cannot.

Nobody can sell you this. Anyone charging for a placement is charging for something they do not control.

The case manager owns your person's record, sentence computation, release planning, halfway house referral, transfers, and visiting list.

That is nearly every decision that affects when your person comes home to you. The case manager is the most consequential staff member in the building, and they carry a large caseload, which is why nothing moves unless someone asks.

The counselor handles day-to-day unit administration — forms, the phone list, job assignments, small problems.

The case manager is described above.

The unit manager supervises both, and is your first escalation when the other two are not responding.

The three together are their unit team. Learn all three names and titles and use them.

A program review. A scheduled meeting with the unit team, where the team goes through progress, programming, and release planning, and hands over computer-generated paperwork.

It is also the only scheduled moment where the halfway house referral can be raised, which makes it the single most important date on their calendar and yours. Ask them when their next one is, and ask them what they asked for afterward.