Phones, mail, and communication

Three hundred a month, and four hundred in November and December. Individual calls cut off at fifteen minutes, and after each one you wait thirty minutes before you can place another.

Some institutions layer a daily cap on top of that. Your facility handbook is the authority on yours, and it is one of the few sections of that document worth reading on day one.

The monthly allowance has moved more than once in the last several years. Treat the number above as current-but-checkable rather than carved anywhere.

You hit a limit — per call, per day, or per month. There are warnings before it happens.

Unofficially, yes, and men who do not use theirs sell the remainder. It is one of the most common transactions on the compound.

There is measurable risk in it. Use of another inmate's account is a prohibited act, so understand that you are trading a shot for a phone call before you do it.

What the rest of that market looks like is in the economy.

All of them. Absolutely. And they get pulled.

Don't.

It is a prohibited act, the system is specifically listening for it, and it is one of the easier things to get caught doing. Do not discuss it on a recorded line either, which is every line.

You can, and yes, it comes out of your minutes.

Your lawyer can also arrange a legal call through the facility, which does not. That route is unmonitored, which is the more important difference. PS 1315.08, Inmate Legal Activities is the policy your lawyer's office should be citing when they set it up.

In my case, because my mom is dead.

In yours, most likely because the number is not a real line. The system requires the person answering to press a key to accept the call, and some virtual number services do not pass that keypress through. Google Voice is the usual culprit. There are workarounds and they need to be set up before you go, not after.

Have whoever is on the outside read the phone and messages chapter of the family guide and test the number before you report.

Then they will not accept your calls. There is nothing to do about it and it will hurt.

It is technically a messaging system but everyone calls it email. Five cents a minute to read, five cents a minute to write.

Your side is TRULINCS, their side is CorrLinks, you initiate the contact, and everything is reviewed in both directions before it lands. No attachments, no photos. The rules are annotated in PS 5265.13.

No.

This one came in from a reader and my draft answer got cut off before I finished it, which is a bad reason to publish half of one. I would rather leave it open than guess at what the person asking meant.

If you know the answer to this one, send it to me and I will write it up and credit nobody, which is how everyone seems to prefer it.