:)
Hi!

I am amanda. I have a pal at Pine Knot, USP McCreary.

I would like to know who the approval for phone calls goes to? Does the inmate see the information?

The same with visiting, please.

Does the inmate take care of it, or does the couselor, or someone else?

Thanks so much!

amanda8088

For visiting you need to fill out a visitors form and send it directly to their counselor

For phone calls the inmate can get you on his/her pin sheet. I believe they do it through their counselor

That is correct. The inmate completes the phone list for approval by the counselor which typically takes about a week. When you receive a call, you have the option of taking the call, declining it, or blocking future calls. The inmate will send you the visitor form which you complete leaving nothing blank, and you send it directly to the counselor. The inmate never sees your completed form but is notified when you are either approved or denied.

:)
Thank you both for your quick answers.

I thought of another quick question.

How long do the calls last?

I am thinking 15 minutes, but dont remember.

Thanks so much!

amanda8088

There is a 15 minute maximum for each call with notification at the 7.5 minute mark that "this call is from a Federal prison". It is typically 30 minutes before an inmate can make a second call regardless of the lenght of the previous call.

Remember that except during the months of November & December when the BOP "gifts" inmates with an additional 100 minutes, you have a 300 minutes per month limit. You cannot make a 15 minute call every day without running out of time long before the month ends.

An inmate can check their available minutes daily to budget them. I cannot think of anything worse than having a crisis at home and being unable to stay in touch. The allowable minutes do not roll over to the next month but unused funds do.

:)
Thanks so much, Susan!

amanda8088

To speed up the visitation process, I found the visitor form on the Bop.gov website either in the forms section or from one of the prison sites in TX and faxed it directly to his counselor the second day he was there. Get the exact name of his counselor fax # is on the website under contact us. I was able to visit the first weekend he was there. That was one thing that the bop didn't move extremely slow about