I´m new here and I need a little help, please.

It´s ok for me to help my Penpal/friend/man of the Death row with money. But..... :( How much is "normally"? Can anybody tell me, how much money an Inmate need to buy the important things like some food etc.?

I´ve heard so much about con mens and that they only want to take advantage of penpals, especially from Europe. Well, I´m sure he don´t take an advantage of me but I get this feeling, he has no idea, how expensive is life in Reality :(

How much is "normally" in a month, when I want to give him a LITTLE support? Can anybody help me? Thank you very much!

My boyfriend is on death row and he lives on $40.00 a month. He says he does fine on that amount. And he smokes, so alot of his money goes to cigarettes. Other than that he buys soup, peanut butter, other foods. I dont send him anything. His sister has been sending him $40 a month for years and he says he doesnt need any more than that.

Nothing except stamp money/ religious books if they seem to need it. Be careful if they fall in love with you fast and the moment you say you think you love them back they send a list of items for you to buy!!! Dont waste your money.

I personally wouldnt send more than 20 dollars a month to a friend. If he starts demanding it, I would stop all together. I sent my boyfriend 20 dollars once and he was pissed! He doesnt want me sending him anything. Dont let anyone pressure you into sending money. If you want to fine, but it shouldnt be forced! PM me if you'd like

Being that they dont have access to get paid , anythhing sent in is ** extra** send what you can afford if u feel like it .

You should never feel obligated to send money, but send it from your heart. He needs money to be able to write to you and it is nice to send him a little extra at Christmas and special occasions. Basically I suspect he wants money to help feed himself, but be aware of what Silverleaves says. They are not all like that, but what she says can be true too often.

To be honest i wouldnt send no money ive been a penpal to a DR inmate for 2 years yes he finds it hard somtimes
but never has he asked me for money he knows life is hard all he wants is my letters photos of the outside world and respect and thats what he gets
if he really wants you as a penpal he wil want you for a release from his hardships of prison life not your money
love and respect shaz

if he really wants you as a penpal he wil want you for a release from his hardships of prison life not your money
love and respect shaz[/QUOTE]
Yes, but if he has been writing you for 2 years, then life must be even harder because of what it costs him to write you don't you think? I mean, he values you, yes, but a letter can be the cost of a bar of soap or something extra to eat to stay alive.
That is my 2cents worth anyway, because it isn't cheap for him to write UK and prison pay buys practically nothing!

Well I am going to get my 2 cents worth in here too. Having been to the big house I can speak from experience. Lots of people there will play you just for money. A true friend wouldn't do that. That being said, stamps do cost money so I would say if you expect to hear from him frequently, send money for stamps, or or send the stamps through USPS directly to him if his institution allows that or the stamped envelopes.
I think only inmates who have prison jobs get paid, being on death row he is probably in his cell 23 hours a day and isn't working or making any money. I am sure the state provides soap and a tooth brush and a comb. so a few $$$ word be a real treat for him. I say send what your comfortable with, he shouldn't ask you though or expect you to.

Of course it is okay to help a deathrow penpal with a few $ to help with stamps, paper, pens, envelopes. It's not like they have any way to earn money. I have 3 penpals, all are on deathrow. I send a small amount once in a while and also a little something at Christmas and birthdays. Not because they ask but because i truly want to. Even tho i am not working i have so much and they have nothing.

My friend faces two different situations, depending on where she is housed at the moment. At the Mt.View Unit in Gatesville, Texas, prisoners are allowed to spend up to $150 (the last time I checked) every two weeks on commissary items, which range from candy/food items to radios, etc. along with stamps and stationery. I send her money occasionally--we were in touch for more than three years before she felt she could ask, prior to which she declined more than one offer, so I don't think she is at all insincere about it. Her family does what they can, but they run short from time to time. Every now and then she will ask for a magazine subscription or some books, but the last time we talked, she said she actually has more books than she can read right now. I have also sent her stationery occasionally--she is a prolific correspondent and I know it all gets used!

On the subject of magazines, by the way, there are some great places online for discount magazines--just enter "discount magazines" into Google and look through the results, most of those places are great about shipping to prisoners and there are literally hundreds of titles you can get for $5.95 or so per year!

When she is in Dallas, as she is now, the commissary is much more expensive (90 cents for a felt-tip pen which she says only lasts for 2-3 letters) and limited in what they carry. There are also greater restrictions on what prisoners can receive by mail--stationery must be bought at the jail and books sent via UPS will be refused. So, there is greater reliance on the inflated prices at the commissary. At the same time, I believe she is more limited on how much money she can spend in a given time--a strange irony.

Anyway, I don't mind sending some money now and then--she is able to get hair done, buy makeup on occasion and other things that wouldn't mean much to a guy but do to her and I suspect are far from cheap. It's so little to me, and I can only hope, so much for her.

I send my guy some $$ - he writes me almost every day and the stamps alone for that will be about $25 - I'm in Europe.
He's on DR and does not have the possibility to work...
I send him books through Amazon as well and have bought him stationary through office depot to well...
I don't have much - and I would be heart broken if I found out he was just using me for that $$

I cannot imagine that he would write you every day if his motives were dishonest. It seems to me you have no need to worry....his intentions seem obvious, as do yours, and I wish you both all the best.

Again you say just what I want to hear! :D

Great to have you hear in this forum - all the best to you and your loved one as well.

XXX, Anne-Kathrine

I cannot imagine that he would write you every day if his motives were dishonest. It seems to me you have no need to worry....his intentions seem obvious, as do yours, and I wish you both all the best.

I am feeling pretty much dissappointed at the moment from being taken for a fool BIG TIME! I have been writing to an inmate for 6mths now in florida (and this is my first experience of writing) and I was really beginning to fall for him and he wrote of his feelings too. Then out of the blue I start receiving emails not only from his girlfriend but other women too, asking who I was. Turns out we are all sending him money, stamps, books etc! He writes to each one of us and tells us his trust fund is empty and how he gets stomach ache from the crap food so he has to buy from the canteen list. The real sad thing for each of us is that he has roped all our kids in and acts like a "father figure" through his letters.
This has really upset me and further more put me off to writing again even though there must be some honest inmates surely? Is'nt it enough that we write to them in the first place and shed a little warmth into their cold cells without exploting us?:confused: :( :mad: :angry:

You're not the only one who has had a bad experience...let's be fair, most of the people who are in prison are there for a reason and the truly bad ones don't improve while incarcerated. Unfortunately, when corresponding with a prisoner, we run the risk of something like this happening. Basically that's the price of tuition in this particular school of hard knocks.

I am truly sorry if you have been hurt--that's gotta be worse than the money involved. Please, don't let this fellow get the better of you. If you want to continue corresponding with prisoners you will no doubt be far more cautious in the future. You may well find that someone truly sincere will appreciate this caution--a prisoner, after all, is making a bit of a leap of faith in responding to a letter from a total stranger.

May you be comforted. Be glad, if nothing else, that this bad experience is past. Better ones lie ahead if you look for them--I think we can all assure you of that.

I would suggest maybe asking him to send you a commisary list so that you can see for yourself how much money he will need to buy the things he wants. If you want to send him money, that would be a good way to make sure that he isn't taking it for granted. Good luck!

That seems like a fine suggestion! My friend has always been very open about what she buys and the approximate cost (apparently it varies at times). Just at the moment she is in the Dallas County Jail pending an appeal--apparently the commissary there cannot even be relied on to keep stamps in stock, if you can believe it. On the other hand, while she is in Dallas, she has access to a telephone, which she does not while on "The Row", so perhaps I should not complain. Apparently, commissary prices in Dallas are highway robbery and the selection available very limited.

Oh, one thing I neglected to add to this discussion--I have sent stationery and greeting cards from various companies (she lets me know her selections from their catalogs), some of which is fairly high-priced at least if one makes a comparison to K-Mart prices. I have no problem sending it, since she can't get it through the commissary and one thing I have heard from more than one Death Row Inmate is that they become hungry for color in a world where everything is colorless. She always delights in the stationery and uses a fair amount of it in writing to me.

Mind, if you are going to send stationery to a Death Row inmate in Texas, they apparently cannot have anything with their name on it. Silly, isn't it?

. . . Then out of the blue I start receiving emails not only from his girlfriend but other women too, asking who I was. Turns out we are all sending him money, stamps, books etc! . . .
How on earth did these women find out about you and your email? It seems they all somehow were able to find out about you and your email address yet you were not able to find out about them and theirs. :hmm:

I am considering writing to someone on DR. As I live in Australia, and I presume postage would cost a little more I would not mind helping with stamps and stationary and such. I was just wondering how do you send money to them.

If you are worried that they are using you, send them books and things that they can use. Don't just send them money.

TONIA usually you can just send a money order to your pen pal

Tonia l am writing to someone that is not on dr and l got a money order from post office its costs $8.50 plust what ever the money order is worth, dont go thought the bank it will cost you more. l am in australia too.

In the past I had problems sending money to my friend and someone suggested www.jpay.com (http://www.jpay.com), it is much cheaper and very convinient, please try it and see, good luck :)

Hi!

I'm writing to two inmates and each of them receives 20$ a month. They need this money to buy stamps, pens and food etc. That's why I think it's really important to support them with money, too. I send some more money on Christmas, birthday...etc. They can live with 20$ a month. Nevertheless, I think you should only send as much as you're able to send! I'm also not willing to buy them something expensive in between - like a new watch for example. I'm not able to do so and so I ask them to save some of their monthly amount for such special things.

Greetings!