Doing time at a low

# Getting to a camp from a low

If nothing on your record requires the fence, you can be moved down. Some of it you control. Some of it nobody will explain.

The mechanism

## How it happens

If you scored into a low but do not have a public safety factor keeping you out of a camp, you can be moved down.

The mechanism is your custody classification getting reviewed at a program review, with clear conduct and time served working in your favor. Some facilities will move a man out to a camp after six months of clean time. Others will not, and there is a management component to it that is not fully transparent.

Your part

## What you can do

Keep your conduct clean, raise it at every team meeting (the staff who run your daily life), ask specifically what is preventing a transfer, and get the answer in writing or write down who told you what and when.

The warning

## What you cannot do

Pay anyone to make it happen. There is no consultant, lawyer, or arrangement that produces a camp designation. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something they do not control.

The full version of that warning, with how designation actually works: [paying to get to XYZ facility](/resources/facility-placement).

Keep reading — part 13 of 13

### [The honest comparison](/going-in/security-levels/at-a-low/the-honest-comparison)

People ask whether a low is bad. It is not, mostly, and it is worse than a camp in specific and predictable ways.

For your people

## Hand the rest of this site to your family

You will not be able to look things up once you're inside. They can, and this is where: [everything written for the one waiting](/for-families) — a twelve-part guide to mail, visiting, money, and your release date, plus their own FAQ and checklist. Alongside it, a [guide to every facility](/resources/facilities) with [email alerts when visiting stops](/lockdown-alerts/subscribe), the [support group directory](/resources/support-groups), calculators for your release math, and [free answers](/contact) when they have questions.

Send them the link before you report, not after they can't reach you.

**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=Low%20security%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.