Can You Text an Inmate? Federal, State, and Jail Rules

Yes, you can text an inmate in federal prison. If your loved one is in a Bureau of Prisons facility, they can send an electronic message from a TRULINCS terminal and you can reply from your normal texting app, the same way you text anyone else. State prisons and county jails are a different story, and that is where most families get stuck.

How federal prison texting actually works

In federal prison, inmates send electronic messages from TRULINCS terminals inside the facility, not from a phone in their cell. CorrLinks is the outside-facing side of that same email system, the part families interact with.

With InmateDB, the setup runs through those terminals. You find your loved one by name or BOP register number, start the free trial or a plan, and they add one InmateDB contact in TRULINCS. After that, they write a message by putting your phone number in the subject line and the message in the body. It arrives on your phone as a text. You reply from your normal texting app, no special software required.

Texting An Inmate is made by the team behind InmateDB, so we know this flow well. The part families trip on is the first message: the inmate has to send it before you can reply on the $9.99 Texting plan. If you want a personal number that anyone can text first, that is the Full Access plan.

What you do, step by step

1. Find the inmate on InmateDB using their full name or their BOP register number, which looks like 12345-678. If you do not have it, the BOP inmate locator on bop.gov will give it to you.
2. Start the 3-day free trial or pick a plan.
3. Tell your loved one to add the InmateDB contact in TRULINCS. This is the step that usually causes the first delay, because it depends on when they next get to a terminal.
4. Wait for their first message. Once it lands, reply from your phone like any other text.

Plans are $9.99/month for Texting, $14.99/month for Texting + AI, and $19.99/month for Full Access. The middle tier adds AI chat with ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok plus news, sports, weather and trivia apps. Full Access adds a personal phone number anyone can text first, email, and 15+ more apps. You do not need an app to use any of them; the InmateDB website, the InmateDB app, or Telegram all work if you prefer.

The first-week problems and how to fix them

The most common issue is silence after setup. Nine times out of ten it is not a technical failure. The inmate simply has not been to a terminal yet. Replies move at the speed of their access, not yours. If you have waited and heard nothing, ask them in your next message whether they added the contact correctly, with the phone number in the subject line and nothing else.

The second issue is the reply rule on the entry plan. On the $9.99 Texting plan, messages go out from a shared number, so you can only reply after the inmate has texted you first. If you want to start the conversation yourself, that is what Full Access is for.

The third is monitoring. Facility staff can review messages. Write accordingly. Nothing you send through a prison messaging system is private in the way a normal text is.

State prisons and county jails are a different system

InmateDB works with federal Bureau of Prisons facilities that use CorrLinks, which is about 93% of federal facilities. It does not work in state prisons or county jails. That is not a limitation we can work around; those systems are run separately and contract with their own providers.

If your loved one is in a state prison, go to that state’s Department of Corrections website and look for the messaging or communications section. It will name the provider the state uses. For a county jail, check the jail’s own website or the sheriff’s office page. Do not assume a provider you used in another state will work in this one. Pricing and rules are set facility by facility, and we will not guess at them.

If you are trying to sort out which system applies to your situation, our guide to how texting an inmate works by state walks through the differences. For a broader look at what families run into across different systems, see texting an inmate state by state.

Photos and letters when texting is not enough

Texting covers the everyday check-ins, but there are two other things families ask about constantly.

Photos: you upload up to 10 per order, and they are printed and mailed to the facility as standard or glossy prints. The inmate gets physical pictures, which matters in a place where nothing is on a wall unless someone sends it.

Letters: you type or upload them online, and they are printed and mailed. Cost is $1.49 for the first page and $0.30 for each page after. This is useful when you want something longer than a text, or when you want to send something the facility will hand them rather than show them on a screen.

Quick answers

Can I text an inmate if I do not know their register number?

Yes. You can search by name on InmateDB, or use the BOP inmate locator on bop.gov to find the register number first. Having the number makes the search faster and avoids mix-ups between inmates with similar names.

Why is my inmate not replying to my texts?

Most often it is terminal access, not a broken connection. They can only read and send when they get to a TRULINCS terminal. On the entry plan, remember that you can only reply after they have messaged you first.

Does this work in county jail?

No. InmateDB is for federal Bureau of Prisons facilities that use CorrLinks. For county jail, check the jail or sheriff’s website to find out which messaging provider they use and what it costs.

If your loved one is in federal prison, the fastest next step is to pull up their record and get the setup moving. Find your loved one on InmateDB and start the free trial. For anything about visiting rules, contact limits, release dates, money transfers or mail policy, check bop.gov or call the facility directly, since those details vary and change.