My fiance is at DVI - reception center in Tracy, CA. I have sent him over twenty letters to him with the correct address. It has been twenty one days and he still has not recieved one. He's concerned about the baby and I.. I was just curious if this normal or not. :( I really want him to know that I'm alright. Any information would be great. Thanks! Everyone has been so helpful.

It is extremly backed up right now.I have a friend in there who I just got a letter from today and he said it took him 3 1/2 weeks to get my last letter! Your fine it is just the mail room unfortunatly!

Mail at DVI TRacy is extremely backed-up. I went to visit my baby last weekend and he had just gotten a letter I wrote on the 9th of September. He even asked the mail room what was up and he just happened to glance over and found a stack of my letters waiting to be given to him. They were like "oh ok, here ya go..." absolutely amazing. Letters from there to me take 2-3 days, but letters to him at least 3 weeks right now. But, I did send him writing materials, and money order with no letter enclosed and he got them within 3 days. It's so frustrating, cause he thinks I'm not writing, then he sees my letters and the potmark and knows the problem is the mail room. Lets hope this gets resolved soon. Hang in there, I know it's really frustrating.



My fiance is at DVI - reception center in Tracy, CA. I have sent him over twenty letters to him with the correct address. It has been twenty one days and he still has not recieved one. He's concerned about the baby and I.. I was just curious if this normal or not. :( I really want him to know that I'm alright. Any information would be great. Thanks! Everyone has been so helpful.

Thanks so much for all your help!!! It drives me crazy how backed up they are. Hopefully he will be transfered soon.

My boyfriend is also in Tracy...his mother called me tonight & asked if I wanted him to just stop writing to me. I couldn't believe it...it turns out that he's gotten letters from her and also from another friend of ours, but none of mine. I have sent a 10+ page letter with the picture he wanted inside, I sent him a card with a money order and a sheet of stamps and I also sent a manila envelope with paper and envelopes. The first one was sent the first week of September. His mother and I started thinking that maybe they were blocking mail coming from me because we were co-defendants. Would they do that??

On top of all that I find out that an inmate manufactured weapon was found in the heating vent in his cell and he's in the hole. He sounded bad enough the last letter I got from him, now I find out about this and he's thinking that I don't want to hear from him anymore. We've been together for 8 1/2 years and I won't be allowed to visit him in the next couple of years, the least they can do is give him my mail.

Is mail service going to be this slow regardless of what facility he's in??

Jennifer

I'm not sure about the co defendent thing but I think it could be a possibility,hopefully someone who does know will come along to answer your question.Mail depends on the facility but it does tend to get backed up everywhere from time to time some worse then others.Right now where my guy is it is only taking a week which isn't bad considering how Tracy is right now or how Pelican Bay was at one point when the mail room was under staffed it was a month or longer!!
Hang in there,Hope he gets your mail SOON!!!

When my husband was at DVI it took like 2-3 weeks for him to get my mail. You might be right about the co-defendant part though I've never heard of that before. Good Luck!!

Andi Byrd

When my son was at DVI Tracy, I had sent a letter almost everyday, and he kept writing and asking why I wasn't writing him. This was in March of this year. So maybe it's common.

I finally got a letter today!! It was actually 5 letters all stuffed in an envelope. He'd been writing to me over the last 2 weeks but they had taken away all of his property with my address in it. He was sounding more and more distraught until I got to the last one and he finally got one of my letters. It was from 3 weeks ago. He asked me to send him envelopes and stamps, won't he be surprised to get the next two letters from me, talk about fast service.

Well today I got another long letter from Ken (my boyfriend) and I also got a letter that I sent returned from the mailroom. Of course it was dated 9/8/04. So it took them over a month to reject it. The bright side of thie is that they sent along one of their "Allowable Mail lists". I scanned it and made it available here...

http://home.earthlink.net/~jennifer_marie/data/scan.jpg

Hope this helps someone out there...

Jennifermarie

The ranch at DVI has a group 602 going. It is taking sometimes 3 to 4 weeks for the guys to get their mail. Title 15 states that they are to have their mail within 7 to 10 days after the facility has received it. You can only send money orders ALONE...no cards..no paper ..anything..to PO Box 20..NOT PO BOX 600...if you try and put a card or anything in with the money order..they will reject it and take their sweet time doing it!! It is a real problem at DVI...LT. Creech is the head of the mail room...if you need his number I will give it to you..do not talk to Archie...she is a witch...

Thank you so much for the information....I just have to say...
That is so freaking ridiculous!! How much more difficult can they make things?? You know it would be so convenient if they would just put important things like this on the CDC website...
I really don't care that most of them have auto mechanics jobs and GED classes..I don't care how many hundreds or thousands men they are above capacity, but would it be so hard to just post the important information, like how we get money to our loved ones, or what can and can't be sent in the mail. It's like they enjoy being able to reject peoples letters or deny their visits. You are just automatically expected to know how everything is done like you've been dealing with the State Prison System all of your life.....

Ok..I feel better now...I've been needing to get that one off my chest for a while now. Sorry about that....


JenniferMarie

I'm with you guys. I too searched all over the internet for the mail rules to DVI, but I couldn't find them anywhere. Then I tried calling DVI itself, but got tired of holding. I finally got the correct mailing information from you guys. Thanks alot! Now I just need to know about the visits. Can anyone tell me what to expect, like: the length of the visits, any privacy at all, how long the wait will be, and if the visits are behind glass why do they let you bring money? If someone can please let me know I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

You are welcome! I wish I could help on the visit issue, but I have never visited a state facility and I don't think they will allow me to any time soon. But I'm sure plenty of folks here could help, you might want to try the "Prison Visitation (http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=46)" section.

Jennifer

Check the Title 15 -- As I recall, mail should take no more than 4 days to be processed. When I was at Chowchlla our mail started running about three weeks and all it took was a couple of family (outside) calls to Sacramento. They shut down all the programs so that staff could work on getting the mail caught up. We where getting mail as it was processed, into the evening. I had mail slid under my door at 11pm. It was amazing. When I was at CRC my boss in the Canteen was the mail room supervisor at one time. She told me that what had happened at Chowchilla was not rare. They are required to keep the mail caught up and get it delivered. Calls from family make a difference! For the institution to hold on to mail is a Federal Offense.

Mail at DVI TRacy is extremely backed-up. I went to visit my baby last weekend and he had just gotten a letter I wrote on the 9th of September. He even asked the mail room what was up and he just happened to glance over and found a stack of my letters waiting to be given to him. They were like "oh ok, here ya go..." absolutely amazing. Letters from there to me take 2-3 days, but letters to him at least 3 weeks right now. But, I did send him writing materials, and money order with no letter enclosed and he got them within 3 days. It's so frustrating, cause he thinks I'm not writing, then he sees my letters and the potmark and knows the problem is the mail room. Lets hope this gets resolved soon. Hang in there, I know it's really frustrating.I know most mailrooms are understaffed. The institution I work at has 6,500 inmates, one tiny mailroom, and five staff members. They handle ALL mail not JUST inmate mail. Also, they are NOT federal employees so they do not work weekends (Sat mail is out), or certain holidays.

My fiance is there in reception right now too, and mail is a JOKE at every prison right now because he just came from Salinas Valley and there mail was 1 month behind. DVI will probably end up giving him a ton of letters all at 1 time, then he'll be overwhelmed with mail...:eek: It does make it VERY difficult around the holidays!! When my fiance first got to DVI I had a hell of a time getting him a letter... And I got the same frusterating letters your probably getting! Just hang in there and eventually they'll get to him and he'll see the post mark dates and know that you were sending them!!!






My fiance is at DVI - reception center in Tracy, CA. I have sent him over twenty letters to him with the correct address. It has been twenty one days and he still has not recieved one. He's concerned about the baby and I.. I was just curious if this normal or not. :( I really want him to know that I'm alright. Any information would be great. Thanks! Everyone has been so helpful.