Which States Are Best For Prison Pen Pals?

[Big Steve]
All right, so you're thinking about finally writing to an inmate, and you've got questions. You're trying to figure out which one should I pick? Who should I write to? Here's something that nobody else talks about but is incredibly important, the state that they're in. This can make all the difference in the world on whether you've got a nice flow of letters coming and going, or whether you're waiting around for months to get a response. I'm going to start out by saying, first you got to decide, do you want to do messaging through their email on their tablet, right? Or do you want to do snail mail? There's benefits to both. Myself, I prefer snail mail. The answer of which state you're going to want to find a pen pal in, that depends a lot on whether or not you're going to want to do the messaging or snail mail. For instance, Illinois has this horrific, the very worst of all the states, it's called Corlinks Text Chat, which is different from Corlinks. Corlinks is actually great, but the ugly stepsister, Corlinks Text Chat, is almost impossible to use. People just hate it, and it's a real disservice to people in Illinois. But if you're thinking about going the messaging route, you're going to want to avoid Illinois. You're going to want to avoid Getting Out. Any state that uses Getting Out, I think it's horrible. I don't recommend messaging anyone through it. It's a terrible app, and more and more states now on Getting Out, they're requiring you to upload a driver's license and a selfie picture and home phone number you have to register, and all this stuff that kind of defeats the purpose, man. You're new to this. You want to get your feet wet and see what it's like to write to someone in prison. You don't want to share your entire background with God knows who. So I'd say just avoid Getting Out completely. The other problem with Getting Out is your phone number actually is visible to the inmates, 

[Big Steve]
as they have to me, and I didn't realize this. I get calls sometimes at midnight from a guy in Sacramento. I never answer it because I'm pissed off that he's waking me up at midnight, but yeah, they'll get your phone number. So just, I'd say no Getting Out, no Illinois. You also don't want New Mexico because Smart Inmate is what they use, and it's awful. You actually have to pay to see the inmate's message. They call it like COD. Like, "You have a message, but we're going to blackmail you here and you've got to pay a dollar or whatever to see what the message is." Like, no, thank you. I'll tell you the good messaging service is JPay. They were the original, and they're a good one. So is Securus, securustech.net. And the absolute best if you're going to want to do messaging is any federal inmate. Now, the federal inmates' addresses, they'll often say FCI or words to that effect for Federal Correction Institution. You'll also notice federal inmates have an eight-digit number, which is five digits and then a dash, and then three more digits. So it might be like 38942-145. And that's how you'll know, okay, that's federal. And if it's federal, you're on Corlinks, you don't have to pay anything. It's totally free for you to write to them. They've got to pay, but you don't. The only downside with Corlinks is they have to invite you to sign up. So what you do is you send them a free message through penpals.buzz with your email address, and you say, "Hey, can you get me onto your Corlinks?" Then you just wait, and when you get the email, you just click to accept their invitation. You're not entering your driver's license number, your pictures, none of that. You're accepted, and you can send them messages for free. Another great one for sending messages is in Connecticut, because they give you like 75 free stamps every month when you sign up, so you can keep in touch with inmates for free in the state of Connecticut. So lots of good choices there if you want to do that route. If you're doing snail mail, the thing you want to watch for is you don't want to write to the states that have mail forwarding facilities in other states, and I'll give you some examples. So, let's say you want to write to an inmate in Delaware. 

[Big Steve]
The letter first has to go to Nevada, [chuckles] right? All the way across the country, thousands of miles away. Goes to Nevada, then it gets either scanned or photocopied, and eventually it gets emailed back to the inmate on their tablet or it gets mailed back to Delaware. Horrible process, could take months. If you want to write to Arizona, it goes to Texas. You can't write to Florida or New York at all. You could, but it's just not worth the trouble because they don't really allow pen pals and they hate pen pals, so half of your stuff's going to get rejected. So just avoid Florida and New York. Indiana mail goes to Maryland. Arkansas goes to Florida. Minnesota goes to Maryland. New Jersey goes to Nevada. I mean, this is ridiculous stuff. New Mexico is already bad because they have Smart Inmate, which is horrible, but their mail goes to Florida. And North Carolina and Tennessee go to Maryland, so does Wisconsin. So, that's all horrible for snail mail. Let me tell you the good ones for snail mail. Go get a pen and write this down. This is going to be good. Idaho is great. Idaho goes direct to the facility. California is great. Goes direct to the facility, and the nice thing with California is there's so many inmates that you have a lot of choices. You can go to penpals.buzz, you can filter by state. You can see all of the inmates in California, and there's plenty of options there. Illinois is really good for snail mail. Don't do the text chat, but snail mail is great. It goes right to them. Some other good states would be Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi. Nevada for snail mail, wonderful. Wonderful. Ohio is also good. Oregon and Washington. And I really like Utah. Utah only allows snail mail. They don't have messaging services, so the guys in Utah are extra excited if they get a letter, right? Everyone else are getting messages and blah, blah. Utah, just the letters are so much more meaningful because they don't get those messages. I don't know, if I were to pick the top states, I'd pick California, I'd pick Oregon and Washington, I'd pick Utah. A lot of the West Coast states for snail mail. Nevada is pretty good. They're a little more strict with the contents of what they allow in, in Nevada. So that's something you want to look for. Illinois, I think is great. And Connecticut overall, I think is one of my favorite states because they've got great messaging through securustech.net. They've got free phone calls for the inmates to call you, and the mail goes direct to the facility. So Connecticut, man, you can't beat it. 

[Announcer 1]
[music] This is the "Prison Pen Pal Podcast." Interact with the "Prison Pen Pal Podcast" at penpals.buzz. 

[Big Steve]
October 17th is less than 10 days away, and I'm thinking about going to Nebraska. There's going to be this amazing rally 

[Big Steve]
right in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the state capitol is where it starts. It's called Not Another Year. And basically, what everybody's going to be doing is coming together to stand against prolonged solitary confinement and the inhumane conditions that come with that inside of the Nebraska state prisons. Some of these guys have been in the hole, have been in solitary confinement for 10 years with no human contact. It's just despicable to me. This has incredible value and meaning, and they're asking everybody to wear orange, if you can, to show solidarity. I'm going to play a little clip from my friend Jay, who has a loved one incarcerated in Nebraska who's currently in solitary confinement. And Jay is also the host of the "More Than an Inmate's Girlfriend" podcast. She's going to talk a little more about it, and then we'll wrap up. 

[Jae Ely]
Think about the last 10 years of your life, all the places you've been, the people you've met, the experiences you've had. When I think about it, it's vast, and I'm so grateful. And then I think about the people in the Nebraska Department of Corrections that have been in the hole for 10 years, and that makes me ask so many questions. Like, on a human standpoint, what is going on? Who are these people? Why are they there? What conditions are they under? If you are one of those people, I urge you to come out October 17th to the Lincoln State Capitol from 10:00 to 12:00, followed by a trip to Tecumseh Prison to show solidarity to those that have been incarcerated with no end in sight in the hole. Come learn. Come ask questions. If you are or know someone who's been impacted by incarceration or you're simply curious, I urge you to come out. More details to come. Please share the event, and I hope to see you there. 

[Big Steve]
And I'm hoping to be there. I really am going to try. It'll be Big Steve's first public appearance with the "Prison Pen Pal Podcast." I'd love it if everybody was wearing our orange and we made a stand for something that we believe in. And I truly believe that prolonged solitary confinement, anything more than a couple weeks, is just sickening. Jay will be there for sure for "More Than an Inmate's Girlfriend," some other prison wives, and it should be a meaningful experience. All right? We'll be back very soon with another full-length episode of the "Prison Pen Pal Podcast" here with penpals.buzz. Please subscribe, like us, follow us, listen to us, tell your little sister about us, as long as she's at least 18. Whatever you've got to do, help spread the word so that we can have more than 28 YouTube subscribers, all right? We would appreciate that, and I'll see you very, very, very, very soon. 

[Announcer 2]
Do you have a loved one that might like a pen pal? Tell them about penpals.buzz. With a penpals.buzz profile, they can exchange letters and emails with open-minded men and women worldwide. Penpals.B-U-Z-Z.