I know as i have lost calls due to my cell phone while talking to my husband and it is so annoying because you can't call them back.

I have to put money on a phone account so my son can call me. We've been cut off a few times because the money ran out. We've also been cut off when the time limit is reached. Aggravating as hell, and sucks that I can't call him back.

OMG!! i hate that 15min time limit! and the interruption in the middle of the call. "this call is from someone in a federal correction facility"!! or something close to that. wow, like we didn't know!

and the different charges depending on where they are, county or fed is outrageous!! knox coutny cost $7.?? per call but the fed charge is $3.??. that is simple not right....

We've gotten that annoying message mid call, right now we get all of that at the beginning, but yes it is annoying, like we don't know where they are calling from, especially when we are the ones who set up the phone account to begin with! Also, I agree about the price differences and all the other "rules" different places have. And the fees, most places my son has been in so far charge $5 + to deposit money on the phone account, Missoula (a county facility) charges $6.95 each time with a minimum payment amount of $25.00, and just try to find out how much they charge per call???? I wish you luck. You have to call them, you can't get the info on line, when you do call you are lucky if you get someone who doesn't have a strong accent.

Kitty, I have to pay $9.95 whether it is for $100 or $25. I don't have $100 and I can only put $25 and it is ridiculous!!! Now, I need to send a money order because if I do that, it only costs $1.25 from the post office. You might want to check into this.

heartbroken, I can do a money order, but it would take up to 2 weeks to be credited to my phone account. I do $50 a month, that's all I can afford (as long as I am able to work). I do it every month on the 3rd, buy the end of the month, account is running low, I don't have the luxury of a 2 week wait. I am hoping and praying that once all this crap with Montana is done, and he gets assigned a "permanent home" things will get easier and less expensive. Right now we talk 2 or 3 times a week. He's far from home, and I've had to try to keep on top of his medical care (or lack thereof).

i deposit $25-$30 a month into my daughter's commissary acct and pay the $3.95 to do it via Western Union. that's the best that i can do with my limited income. so we budget calls to usually once a week. every once in a while we will do 2 calls a week. then of course we write up a storm. it's not unusual at all to send a letter that is anywhere from 10 to 22pgs long. the news we pass back and forth isn't earth shattering, it's just day to day stuff. our thoughts and our feelings.

she called this evening. i was out with her brother and nephew. i held the phone so that her nephew could talk to her for a minute. when i got back on the phone she was crying. it so broke my heart and choked me up too.....

I'm still at that place where I hesitate to mention to my son anything about family gatherings and stuff. I don't want to make him any sadder than he already is.

she's only been locked up since Nov of last year, going on 10months. but i take that chance to mention that to her and tell her what we're doing. yes, it makes her sad and makes her miss us muchly. but.... she knows that i see her brother every day and that he gets his son for visitation. i think not talking to her would make her feel even more cut off from the people that she loves. that she would feel even more isolated from family. she needs the touch that everyday life and family does continue. her brother and i write to her and tho she knows that we love and miss her we also are that link to other stuff that goes on "out here". i feel that it's so important that in every way possible, that she is reminded and included in/with as much as possible, however i can with family stuff. and in general life out here! i ask her advice and opinion on all kinds of stuff that i deal with everyday even tho she's not here. i guess i just don't want her to forget that there is life outside of prison. i don't ever want her to start to think or feel that all there is left of her world is the life she lives in prison.

You ladies are doing the right and honorable thing by keeping in touch with your loved ones. Probably 60-70% of the inmates in prison never receive a card or a visit and have no contact with their family.

I can tell you from experience that an inmate's worst fear is that he or she will be completely forgotten by people on the outside, that his or her life will not mean anything to anyone, that he or she will become irrelevant, that he or she does not matter to anyone anymore.

Prison is a tough, harsh environment, more emotionally than physically. These younger men and women deal with a lot of confused emotions. When I went in I was about 40 years old, and even I dealt with a lot in the beginning.

When I went in and got established, I tried to help a lot of these young kids, to show them the way around. I could see that they were really dealing with a lot of tough issues.

It just makes my blood boil that they give such long prison sentences to some of these people for looking at a damn picture. As I said, it is OK to watch TV and see some celebrity with shorts so short her butt is hanging out or a dress so low that her breasts are showing, but if we look at a picture of a child that may be 20 years old, it is prison.

rewdiazepam

echomoon, my son has only been in since may, 4 months. I think it just still too new to all of us. We had talked about sending pictures, he told me that he would let me know when he feels he is ready.

rew, it pisses me off every time I hear of someone who molested a child only get a few years, my son was strictly on line, he got 10 years.

Kitty,

I agree wholeheartedly. Sending someone to prison for years for only looking at a few pictures----with no touching, manufacturing, or distribution----is one of the biggest injustices I see in these situations.

The United States Sentencing Commission has been under pressure from federal judges to rectify this and make child porn sentence more reasonable, but they have not done so yet.

rewdiazepam

i hope and pray that they do make them more reasonable!!! it would be awesome if they did and it worked to help shorten the sentences down of the 1000's of people serving time now. it would be even better if they could also knock it out off the registry. but then we all live for the day that the registry is done away with. even making it so that it was only viewable to LE would be a huge help!!

i know my daughter lives in terror that someone will find out about or get a hold of her charges!! this is why i am so careful to not mention any of her charges in a letter or speak of them while she and i are on the phone. she has enough to deal with as it is without dealing with the fear that she would have in there if other inmates found out what she was in for.

Phone system.. Commissary. My 2 favorite pet peeves.

I call GTL once a month to find out my balance. $6.95 to put in $25 , 50, 100. depending on the length of his sentence I use $100 when I can. Cheaper.

As far as Commissary is concerned. It aggravates the hell out of me that I have to pay $7.95 to put $50 in.
NJDOC takes out 10% to pay off his fines. Sorry but, why am I paying off HIS fines??
Yeah I agree that the 20% comes out of his money but the $7-95 comes right out of my pocket. Im on a fixed income.
Then they charge him 10% more as a restocking fee so it costs me $57.95 for him to get about $40 in his commissary.

Who does that hurt?