Sending Money & Books to BCIC (Balt. City Central Booking)

[SassySmith06]

Hello All,

I'm hoping that I'm posting this in the right place, but I truly need help, my fiance is in Central Booking and for the life of me I cannot get a straight answer out of these people or get anyone to answer the phone for that matter. I'm new to all this as he is the first person I've ever had to go through all this with. This is hard for both of us and I'm trying to support him in anyway possible. I have 2 main issues. Does anyone know how I go about sending books there? I know that is has to be sent via USPS but there's the issue of where they have to come from, I was told that I could use Amazon.com but then I also read that it has to be sent from the publisher, and I have no idea of how to do that. The second issue is the conflicting information I'm getting about getting money to him, do you mail it? Take it to the finance office where I picked up his stuff? I'm really getting the run around here, while he's stuck in that hell hole. He said it could be done online through T-Netix, which is now Securus and they only handle setting up accounts for phone usage which is what I've done. Also if anyone knows the rules and regs to sending mail. If you have any suggestions, advice or know what to do please let me know. Thanks!

[ChickfromMD]

You will never be able to get a straight answer from those places - everyone does things differently there, some are lenient and some aren't. It all depends on the day and who is working.

My man wasn't in central booking long enough to really worry about sending money...I tried to send him a money order and had it returned because he was already moved to another facility by the time I sent it. If he's indigent, they will give him supplies to write letters (7 a week, I believe). I never had success with ordering books, but I did send a newspaper, some printed pages from the internet, and some pages out of a puzzle book for him in the regular mail. You can send a newspaper right through the mail. I was able to send him one book through the mail by shoving it in a regular envelope - they let him have it, but told him that they would need to come from the bookstore from now on. I guess it depends on who is working in the mailroom - I don't think you are personally allowed to send books. I went to Barnes and Noble and they told me that they constantly get rejections from prisons, so they don't even mail to prisons anymore.

Normally, when someone is in one of the facilities, you can send a money order to the facility (a plain envelope with the money order inside) and the money order has to be made out to the facility, but you also put the inmates name and id # on it so it can be credited to the right account. It takes a few days to process.

Good luck!