Inmates are allowed to send and receive postal mail with virtually anyone. Books and magazines sent directly from a publisher or bookstore, such as Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com, are allowed. Federal inmates are not allowed to receive any care packages. They can only receive clothing within 30 days of their release date.
Limited e-mail is allowed through the CorrLinks system. The general public can install a CorrLinks app on their smart phones or access CorrLinks via their web site to send an e-mail to a prisoner. While free to the public, inmates are charges $0.005/minute to send and receive email messages through CorrLinks.
Utilizing e-mail via the CorrLinks system (see above), AICS has pioneered a means of sending text messages immediately to anyone's cell phone that can receive text messages. This allows an inmate to communicate with anyone. With a personal texting number, AICS facilitates the sending and receiving of text messages.
During periods when an inmate has e-mail access, text messaging allows for near real-time communication with family and friends and no phone minutes or pre-approvals are required.
Federal inmates are allowed 300 minutes of phone time per month. They can use these minutes to call any person on the inmate's approved phone list. Each call will be disconnected after 15 minutes. The inmate will be required to wait before they can make another call. This time may be from 5 to 45 minutes depending on the prison.
Each minute costs $0.23. If an inmate uses all 300 minutes, it will cost them $69.00 which will be deducted from their commissary account.
During the holiday months of November and December, the BOP gives inmates an extra 100 minutes each month.
AICS provides discounted vanity numbers that can reduce the other costs up to 52%. This reduces the total to $33.00 a month for the same 300 minutes. Click here for more info.
Visiting is allowed by the BOP for immediate family and some friends. All visitors are screened prior to being placed on an inmate's approved visitors list. The screening may require a background check and criminal history check. Those with a criminal history are unlikely to be allowed visits.
Each prison may have it's own rules and policies for being allowed to be on an inmate's visitors list. Visiting rules define what is and what is not allowed during a visit with an inmate and when the visits can occur.