Write an Inmate: U.S. Mail for Federal Inmates

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

To write someone in federal prison you need four things on the envelope — their committed name, their eight-digit register number, the facility name, and the specific mailing address that facility publishes, which is very often a PO box in a different town from the prison itself. Get the register number wrong or use the street address instead of the published mailing address and the letter comes back.

Postal mail is also the most durable channel in the federal system. It reaches people in segregation when email does not, it costs a stamp instead of a per-minute fee, and when it is properly marked as special mail it is the only written channel that is opened in your loved one’s presence and not read (28 C.F.R. § 540.18(a)).

The rules below come from Program Statement 5265.14, Correspondence (5 April 2011), Program Statement 5800.16, Mail Management Manual (5 April 2011), Program Statement 5266.11, Incoming Publications (9 November 2011), and the binding regulation at 28 C.F.R. part 540, subparts B and F. Verified 7 September 2026 against the current eCFR text and the Bureau’s own published facility records. A Program Statement is agency policy; the regulation is what binds.

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The exact address format the Bureau publishes

Do not invent a format. The Bureau publishes a mailing block for every institution on that institution’s own page, and the block is not the same as the facility’s street address. Here is what the published block looks like, verbatim from the Bureau’s page for USP Terre Haute:

INMATE NAME & REGISTER NUMBER USP Terre Haute U.S. PENITENTIARY P.O. BOX 33 TERRE HAUTE, IN 47808

Five lines, in that order:

1. Committed name and register number. Use the full committed name — the name they were sentenced under — not a nickname or a married name they now use. The register number is eight digits, formatted like 12345-678. Find both with the federal inmate locator; our explainer on how the register number works covers what the digits mean and why it never changes.
2. The facility’s short name — “USP Terre Haute,” “FCI Petersburg Low,” “MCC Chicago.”
3. The facility type spelled out — “U.S. PENITENTIARY,” “FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION,” “FEDERAL PRISON CAMP,” “METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER.” If your loved one is at a satellite camp, the Bureau’s published block adds a SATELLITE CAMP line here.
4. The PO box or street line.
5. City, state and ZIP.

Three things about this that catch people out.

The PO box town is often not the prison’s town. The mailing address for USP Terre Haute is P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808, while the facility sits at 4700 Bureau Road South, Terre Haute, IN 47802 — a different ZIP. At FCI Petersburg Low the published block reads P.O. BOX 1000, PETERSBURG, VA 23804, but the institution is physically at 1100 River Road, Hopewell, VA 23860. Mail addressed to the physical location is not what the Bureau’s mail room is set up to receive.

Two facilities can share a PO box and still need different lines. USP Terre Haute and FCI Terre Haute both use P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808. What distinguishes them is lines 2 and 3 — “USP Terre Haute / U.S. PENITENTIARY” versus “FCI Terre Haute / FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION.” Drop those lines and you have made the mail room guess.

Not every facility uses a PO box. Of the Bureau’s 118 institutions, a minority publish a street address instead. MCC Chicago publishes 71 WEST VAN BUREN STREET, CHICAGO, IL 60605. FPC Alderson publishes GLEN RAY RD. BOX A, ALDERSON, WV 24910 — neither a plain PO box nor a conventional street address. Copy what the facility publishes; do not normalize it.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The first thing we check when a family says “my letters aren’t arriving” is not the content. It is whether the address block matches what the Bureau publishes for that specific facility, and whether the person has been transferred. General correspondence is forwarded to a new address for only 30 days (28 C.F.R. § 540.25(f)); after that it goes back to the sender marked “Not at this address” (PS 5265.14 at p. 23). A transfer three months ago explains most silences.

Every facility record also carries the same money warning, and it is worth repeating: do not send money to the institution’s address. Funds go to the Bureau’s centralized processing center in Des Moines, Iowa, in the form of a money order made out to the person’s full name and complete register number, with no enclosures in the deposit envelope (28 C.F.R. § 506.2(a)). Personal checks are returned to the sender. Money enclosed in an ordinary letter is rejected outright (28 C.F.R. § 540.23). Our guides cover sending money to a federal inmate, Western Union and MoneyGram.

Before you write, confirm the facility is still open. The Bureau announced a set of closures and conversions effective 1 July 2026 — see major federal prison closures and deactivations — and a facility record can carry a dated closure warning while people are still being moved.

What actually gets mail rejected

This is the section worth bookmarking, because the reasons are specific and most of them are avoidable.

Category 1: physical things the mail room cannot inspect. “An item received that cannot be searched or examined without destruction or alteration (e.g., electronic greeting cards, padded cards, double-faced photograph) will be returned to sender” (PS 5800.16 at p. 20). A “double-faced photograph” is why Polaroids and any print with a backing get returned — the backing is a cavity. A musical birthday card is an electronic greeting card. When it goes back, you get a copy of form BP-A0328, Stamps, Negotiable Instrument & Other Returned to Sender, and so does your loved one (PS 5800.16 at p. 20).

Category 2: nuisance items. “Minor or nuisance physical things (such as hair, plant shavings, small artifacts and items, and sexually explicit personal photographs, etc.) are not authorized and will be returned to the sender,” again on a BP-A0328 (PS 5800.16 at p. 27). This is the provision behind the glitter, stickers, pressed flowers, lipstick prints and perfume that families are warned about. The policy does not name those items; it names the category, and glitter and a lock of hair fall inside it.

Category 3: stamps and anything with postage on it. “An inmate may not receive through the mail, stamps or stamped items, such as envelopes embossed with stamps or postal cards with postage affixed. If such items are received, they will be returned, at Government expense” (PS 5800.16 at p. 27; 28 C.F.R. § 540.21(j)). A stamped self-addressed envelope, sent kindly so they can write back, is a rejection.

Category 4: money and negotiable instruments. Rejected and returned on a BP-A0328 (PS 5265.14 at p. 22). So are “unsolicited funds” — money from a mail survey, a contest, a book or record club (PS 5800.16 at p. 24).

Category 5: presentence reports. “Pre-sentence Investigation Reports and Statement of Reason received through the mail will be considered contraband and will be rejected” (PS 5800.16 at p. 27); people in custody are not permitted to receive or keep them in their property (PS 5800.16 at p. 21). Families mail PSRs constantly, believing they are helping. They are not.

Category 6: content. The Warden may reject correspondence determined detrimental to security, good order or discipline, to public protection, or that might facilitate criminal activity, including matter that is nonmailable under postal law; that depicts, describes or encourages violence or group disruption; that carries escape plots or plans to commit illegal acts; that directs a business; that contains threats, extortion, obscenity or gratuitous profanity; that is written in code; that is sexually explicit in a way that threatens someone’s safety or institutional order; or that is contraband (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(d)). On nude or sexually suggestive personal photographs the Program Statement is blunter than the regulation: ordinarily a person is not permitted to receive through the mail a personal photograph in which the subject is nude, displays genitalia or female breasts, or that depicts sexually suggestive acts (PS 5265.14 at p. 10).

Category 7: an unauthorized package. Under 28 C.F.R. § 540.14(d)(8), “[a] package received without prior authorization by the Warden is considered to be contraband.” See the package section below.

Category 8: no return address. A missing or incomplete return address is one of the four grounds for staff to open a sentenced person’s outgoing mail at a minimum or low security institution (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(c)(1)(iv)), and outgoing special or legal mail submitted “without an accurate return address will not be processed and will be returned immediately to the inmate for correct preparation” (PS 5800.16 at p. 22).

The rejection notice: what you are owed and how to appeal

Rejection is not supposed to be silent, and the procedure is one of the few places the regulation gives a person outside the prison a right of their own.

“When correspondence is rejected, the Warden shall notify the sender in writing of the rejection and the reasons for the rejection. The Warden shall also give notice that the sender may appeal the rejection. The Warden shall also notify an inmate of the rejection of any letter addressed to that inmate, along with the reasons for the rejection and shall notify the inmate of the right to appeal the rejection. The Warden shall refer an appeal to an official other than the one who originally disapproved the correspondence.” — 28 C.F.R. § 540.13

Four operational details the Program Statement adds:

• The rejection authority is not delegable below the Associate Warden, and neither is signing the notification letter (PS 5265.14 at p. 7).
• The form is BP-A0327, Returned Correspondence — that is the document to ask for by name (PS 5265.14 at p. 7).
• The offending content is copied and retained for at least three months so it is available if the rejection is appealed (PS 5265.14 at p. 7). Appeal inside that window.
• Where the Warden made the initial rejection, a non-inmate sender’s appeal goes to the Regional Office (PS 5265.14 at p. 7).

There is one exception with no notice at all: rejected correspondence is returned to the sender unless it includes plans for or discussion of a crime or evidence of a crime, in which case there is no obligation to return it or give notice, and it is referred to law enforcement (28 C.F.R. § 540.13). Contraband is not returned either.

The person inside can also challenge a rejection through the administrative remedy program, usually starting with an Inmate Request to Staff. See prison grievances.

Who reads your letter, and whether they can seal theirs

Two separate rules, and the second one surprises people.

Everything incoming is opened. “Institution staff shall open and inspect all incoming general correspondence,” and it “may be read as frequently as deemed necessary to maintain security or monitor a particular problem” (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(a)). Inspection is aimed at contraband; the random reading is aimed at escape plots, plans to break the law or institution rules, and other security concerns (PS 5265.14 at p. 9). Staff who learn private information while reading are expected to handle it discreetly and not reveal it absent a legitimate correctional concern (PS 5265.14 at p. 9).

Whether they can seal outgoing mail depends on the security level of the institution.

Where they are	Can they seal a general letter?
Minimum or low security, sentenced	Yes — sealed and sent unopened and uninspected, with four exceptions: reason to believe it would interfere with orderly running, threaten the recipient or facilitate crime; restricted correspondence list; inmate-to-inmate mail; incomplete return address (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(c)(1))
Medium, high or administrative, sentenced	No — except special mail, outgoing mail “may not be sealed by the inmate and may be read and inspected by staff” (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(c)(2))
Pretrial, any level	No — except special mail, outgoing mail may not be sealed and may be read and inspected (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(b))

Which bucket someone is in depends on their designation — see federal prison security levels, from minimum and low through medium, high and administrative.

One choice nobody tells families about. Promptly after arrival, every person is given a written notice about mail handling and asked to sign one of two parts: Part I, requesting that the Bureau return their general correspondence to the Postal Service unread, meaning they receive none of it; or Part II, agreeing to have general correspondence opened, read and delivered. Refusing to sign is treated as choosing Part II. Either way, special mail is still delivered after being opened in their presence and checked for contraband (28 C.F.R. § 540.12(b); PS 5265.14 at pp. 5–6). The notice is part of form BP-A0407, Acknowledgment of Inmate.

How fast it moves. Incoming correspondence is delivered daily Monday through Friday, and delivery “may not be delayed and ordinarily will be made within 24 hours of receipt, excluding weekends and holidays” (PS 5800.16 at p. 20). Outgoing letter mail is ordinarily processed within 24 hours on the same schedule (PS 5800.16 at p. 28). Packages are inventoried within 48 hours excluding weekends and holidays (PS 5800.16 at p. 26). Mail is not supposed to be delayed for an investigation — investigators are required to work around the 24-hour letter and 48-hour package targets (PS 5800.16 at p. 27).

Special mail: the exact envelope wording, and the one word that fails

If you are a lawyer, a court, a member of Congress or another listed official, your mail is opened in the person’s presence and inspected but not read — but only if the envelope is right.

The two-part test, from 28 C.F.R. § 540.18(a):

1. The sender must be adequately identified on the envelope, and
2. The front of the envelope must be marked “Special Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate.”

Miss either half and staff “may treat the mail as general correspondence and may open, inspect, and read the mail” (28 C.F.R. § 540.18(b)).

Acceptable variants of the marking, per PS 5265.14 at p. 15: “Attorney-Client — Open only in the presence of the inmate” and “Legal Mail — Open only in the presence of the inmate.”

The trap is the word “Esquire.” The Mail Management Manual is explicit:

“The use of the title ‘Esquire’ without additional indication of the sender’s occupation does not establish the bearer as an attorney or legal aid supervisor. Mail from individuals using the title ‘Esquire’ as the exclusive identification of their status shall not be handled as special mail, even if the envelope contains some special mail markings.” — PS 5800.16 at p. 21

What does work: “Esquire” after the sender’s name plus the same name in the law office’s return address, or “Esquire” plus a notation such as “Attorney-At-Law” (PS 5800.16 at p. 21). Firm letterhead envelopes carrying the sending attorney’s name satisfy it. A plain envelope reading “Jane Smith, Esq.” does not.

Who counts as special mail. Outgoing, to: the President and Vice President; the U.S. Department of Justice including the Bureau of Prisons; U.S. Attorneys’ offices; the Surgeon General; the U.S. Public Health Service (the Centers for Disease Control included); the Secretaries of the Army, Navy or Air Force; U.S. Courts including U.S. Probation Officers; Members of Congress; embassies and consulates; Governors; State Attorneys General; prosecuting attorneys; directors of state corrections departments; state parole commissioners; state legislators; state courts; state probation officers; other federal and state law enforcement offices; attorneys; and representatives of the news media (28 C.F.R. § 540.2(c), reprinted at PS 5265.14 at p. 3). Incoming special mail is a shorter list — attorneys, the President and Vice President, Members of Congress, embassies and consulates, DOJ excluding the Bureau but including U.S. Attorneys, other federal law enforcement officers, State Attorneys General, prosecuting attorneys, Governors, U.S. Courts including probation officers, and state courts (PS 5265.14 at p. 4).

Some mail gets the treatment anyway. The Warden may handle mail that does not meet every requirement as special mail — the policy’s own examples are correspondence from the chambers of a federal judge or from a Member of Congress, which should be given special handling even without the marking (PS 5265.14 at p. 14; PS 5800.16 at p. 20).

Other mechanics worth knowing:

• Staff mark each incoming legal mail envelope with the date and time of receipt, the date and time of delivery and opening in the person’s presence, and the delivering staff member’s name, and keep a master log. The person may be asked to sign but is not required to (28 C.F.R. § 540.19(a); PS 5800.16 at p. 21).
• The person inside is responsible for telling their attorney how to mark the envelope (28 C.F.R. § 540.19(b)). The Bureau publishes an instruction sheet for this purpose, BP-A0493, Special Mail Notice, to be enclosed with a letter to counsel (PS 5800.16 at p. 20).
• Outgoing special mail is delivered by hand to a staff member, who confirms the sender matches the return address (PS 5800.16 at p. 22).
• All outgoing special mail is subject to electronic scanning — x-ray, metal detector, ion spectrometry — which may happen outside the person’s presence, but scanning “cannot be used to read or review the content” (PS 5800.16 at p. 22).
• Outgoing special mail weighing 16 ounces or more is processed as a package, on form BP-329 (PS 5800.16 at p. 22). A thick set of exhibits is a package, not a letter.
• Special mail is not processed on weekends; anything arriving over a weekend is processed Monday and marked as received on the preceding Saturday (PS 5800.16 at p. 28).
• Outgoing special mail carries a stamp on the back telling the recipient the letter “has neither been opened nor inspected” (28 C.F.R. § 540.18(d)).
• A person can be put on restricted special mail status where the Warden, with Regional Counsel’s concurrence, documents in writing that their special mail has posed or may pose a threat of physical harm. They must then present all special mail unsealed for inspection in their presence, seal it in front of staff and hand it straight over. The status is reviewed at least once every 180 days and is challengeable through the administrative remedy program (28 C.F.R. § 540.18(c)(2)).

For the wider picture see attorney-client communications in the Bureau of Prisons and our summary of PS 1315.08, Inmate Legal Activities.

Photographs, books, magazines and packages

Photographs. There is no national rule on how many photos may be in an envelope or how big they may be. The Program Statements set content limits, not counts: nude or sexually suggestive personal photographs are ordinarily excluded (PS 5265.14 at p. 10), and anything that cannot be inspected without destroying it — a double-faced photograph, which is what a Polaroid is — goes back to the sender (PS 5800.16 at p. 20). Quantity and size limits are institution-level rules set in the Institution Supplement, which each institution must maintain and forward to the Regional Correctional Programs Administrator (PS 5265.14 at p. 24). Common local limits run to five photographs per envelope and 4×6 inches, but that is a local practice, not a Bureau rule. Ask, or check the facility’s Admission and Orientation handbook, which is published on the facility’s own page. Some institutions photocopy incoming photographs rather than delivering the originals — see our note on photocopying mail to curb drug smuggling and, for a compliant alternative, sending a photo book to prison.

Books and magazines follow a security-level rule that almost every website gets wrong. PS 5266.11 at p. 2 and 28 C.F.R. § 540.71 set it out:

Item	Minimum & low security	Medium, high & administrative
Hardcover books and newspapers	Publisher, book club or bookstore only	Publisher, book club or bookstore only
Softcover (paperbacks, magazines, clippings)	Any source — except newspapers	Publisher, book club or bookstore only

So a family member can mail a paperback to someone at a camp or a low, but not to someone at a medium or a penitentiary. The sender’s address must be clearly identified on the outside of the package (PS 5266.11 at p. 2). Where a publication is genuinely no longer available from a publisher, book club or bookstore, the Unit Manager may make an exception on written documentation from the person in custody (PS 5266.11 at p. 2).

The Warden may reject an individual publication as detrimental to security, good order or discipline, or as facilitating criminal activity — but “may not reject a publication solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social or sexual, or because its content is unpopular or repugnant,” and may not maintain an excluded list; each issue must be reviewed individually, and rejecting several issues is not a reason to reject the subscription (PS 5266.11 at pp. 2–4). Rejection triggers written notice to the person in custody that must reference the specific objectionable article or material, and ordinarily an opportunity to review it in order to appeal (28 C.F.R. § 540.71(d)). The publisher or sender gets a copy of the rejection letter and may obtain independent review by writing to the Regional Director within 20 days of receiving it (28 C.F.R. § 540.71(e)); if no appeal is filed within 20 days the publication may be returned to the publisher (PS 5266.11 at p. 5). A separate statutory bar — 18 U.S.C. § 4042 note, the Ensign Amendment — requires return of commercially published material that is sexually explicit or features nudity, on forms BP-A0954, BP-A0955 and BP-A0956 (PS 5266.11 at pp. 5–6). See our summary of incoming publications policy.

Packages need permission before you send them. All incoming property packages must be authorized in advance on form BP-A0331, Authorization to Receive Package or Property, which is valid for no more than 60 calendar days from approval. A package arriving without a completed BP-A0331, or without markings indicating authorized materials, is unauthorized and returned to the sender; so is a package with an expired BP-A0331 (PS 5800.16 at pp. 24–25). Some packages are authorized under other policy — approved educational materials, legal materials — and should be marked “Authorized by Bureau Policy.” A package identifiable as coming from a commercial source such as a publisher, bookstore or book club needs neither the form nor the marking (PS 5800.16 at pp. 24–25). Everything is x-rayed before it enters the secure perimeter, and authorized packages are inventoried in the person’s presence within 48 hours excluding weekends and holidays (PS 5800.16 at p. 26). See inmate personal property policy.

Special postal services. A person in custody may send registered, certified or insured mail and request a return receipt, at no cost to the government; certified mail goes first class at their expense. They may not be provided express mail, COD, private carriers, or stamp collecting (28 C.F.R. § 540.22). If mail comes back undelivered, staff open and inspect it before returning it to them, and any re-mailing is at their expense (28 C.F.R. § 540.24).

Postage, indigence, and what it costs them to write back

Writing to you is not free for them, and the limits are specific.

• Paper and envelopes are free. “Writing paper and envelopes are provided at no cost to the inmate” (28 C.F.R. § 540.21(b)).
• Postage is theirs to pay, and the commissary must stock stamps (28 C.F.R. § 540.21(a)).
• Purchase limit: ordinarily 20 stamps per commissary visit (first-class domestic one-ounce denomination or equivalent). If visits are weekly or less frequent the Warden may authorize more; buying above 20 in a visit needs the Associate Warden’s approval, not delegable below unit manager (PS 5265.14 at p. 18).
• Possession limit: no more than 60 stamps at one time, unless the Warden authorizes more (PS 5265.14 at p. 18). Stamps function as currency inside — see the prison black market — which is why the ceiling exists.
• If they have no money. Someone with neither funds nor postage who wants to mail legal mail or administrative remedy forms must be given stamps for it (28 C.F.R. § 540.21(d)); the Program Statement sets the working figure at up to five stamps per week (PS 5265.14 at p. 19). For maintaining community ties the Warden must provide stamps for “a reasonable number of letters,” and the Program Statement suggests five letters per month as reasonable in most circumstances (28 C.F.R. § 540.21(e); PS 5265.14 at p. 19). Holdovers and pretrial commitments get a reasonable number too, with three letters per week suggested (28 C.F.R. § 540.21(i); PS 5265.14 at p. 20).
• “Without funds” has a definition here. For postage purposes it means someone “without sufficient commissary balance to purchase a postage stamp sufficient for first-class, 1-ounce domestic mailing” (PS 5265.14 at p. 19). That is a different test from the telephone indigence rule, which turns on not having had a $6.00 trust fund balance for the past 30 days (28 C.F.R. § 540.105(b)).
• There is a payback rule. Someone who has, for at least two separate months, run their commissary account down, taken government-paid stamps, and then put money back may be required to complete a BP-199 reimbursing the postage (PS 5265.14 at p. 19).
• Postage-due mail is refused and not ordinarily accepted (28 C.F.R. § 540.21(h)). Weigh the envelope.

See also what indigent federal inmates are provided and commissary items.

The return address they must use, and the TRULINCS label

Their envelope has requirements too, and failing them means the letter comes straight back to them.

Every envelope, whether pre-printed through UNICOR or handwritten, must carry a return address with the name, register number, name of the institution, PO box (or street address where there is no PO box), and city, state and ZIP code (PS 5265.14 at pp. 6–7). The Mail Management Manual restates it: correct identification means “full committed name, register number, and complete institution return address,” and “[f]ailure to include any of the above information will require the material to be returned to the inmate for correct preparation” (PS 5800.16 at p. 29).

At institutions running the TRULINCS-generated mailing label system — which is most of them — the label is mandatory on all outgoing correspondence, and mail without one is returned for proper preparation (PS 5265.14 at p. 7; PS 4500.13 at p. 126). The label identifies the recipient only; printing return-address labels is prohibited, and misusing labels can be charged as misuse of government property. People are ordinarily limited to marking five mailing labels for print per day, and the Warden may authorize more (PS 4500.13 at p. 126). The Warden may exempt someone with a physical or mental incapacity, or held where access to TRULINCS is limited such as the SHU or a Special Management Unit (PS 4500.13 at p. 126).

Because the label is drawn from their contact list, your address has to be on that list and has to be right. They may store two postal addresses per contact and are ordinarily limited to 100 active contacts overall (PS 4500.13 at pp. 125–126). Entering false or fictitious contact information — an incomplete name, altered details, anything meant to mislead monitoring staff — is itself a disciplinary matter (PS 4500.13 at p. 125). If you move, tell them in writing; correspondents are responsible for informing them of a change of address, and they are responsible for informing correspondents of theirs (28 C.F.R. § 540.25(b)).

The same contact list drives CorrLinks email and the telephone list, which is why an address correction can fix three problems at once.

Restricted correspondence, inmate-to-inmate mail, and CMUs

Restricted general correspondence. The Warden may limit someone to an approved list of correspondents, based on misconduct or as a matter of classification. The factors are: involvement in the § 540.14(d) activities; soliciting funds or items, or subscribing to a publication without paying; being a security risk; threatening a government official; or having committed an offense involving the mail (28 C.F.R. § 540.15(a)). Where the restriction is not based on an incident report, the Warden must advise the person in writing of the reasons, give them the chance to respond orally or in writing or both, and notify them of the decision, the reasons, and the right to appeal (28 C.F.R. § 540.15(c)(2)). Even on restricted status they may correspond with a spouse, mother, father, children and siblings unless that correspondent is involved in a violation of the correspondence rules or is a threat to security or good order (28 C.F.R. § 540.15(d)(1)).

Segregation does not cut off mail. “The Warden shall permit an inmate in segregation to have full correspondence privileges unless placed on restricted general correspondence” (28 C.F.R. § 540.16(b)). This is the single most important reason to keep writing when someone lands in the Special Housing Unit: postal mail gets through when email does not, because someone in segregation loses the ability to send messages (PS 4500.13 at p. 124). People in holdover status keep correspondence privileges similar to everyone else’s insofar as practical (28 C.F.R. § 540.16(a)).

Inmate-to-inmate mail is broader than most pages report. It is permitted where the other person is either a member of the immediate family or a party or witness in a legal action in which both are involved — and “may be approved in other exceptional circumstances,” weighing the security level, the relationship, and whether the person has other regular correspondence (28 C.F.R. § 540.17). It is never sealed and may always be inspected and read at both institutions. Where both are in federal facilities and are family or co-parties, the unit manager at each institution must approve; where one is at a non-federal facility, or approval rests on exceptional circumstances, both Wardens must approve (28 C.F.R. § 540.17(b)). Legal-action approvals need documentation dated within the past six months, refreshed at team reviews (PS 5265.14 at p. 13). Approval survives a transfer, and normally extends to TRULINCS messages as well (PS 5265.14 at p. 14).

Communications Management Units cap the page count. Under the reissued PS 5214.05, Communications Management Units (26 February 2026), general written correspondence in a CMU “may be limited to six pieces of paper (not larger than 8.5 x 11 inches), double-sided writing permitted, once per calendar week, to and from a single recipient at the discretion of the Warden,” and the page limit applies in all three phases (PS 5214.05 at p. 9). Approved social contacts are capped at 10 in Phase 1 and 20 in Phase 2 (PS 5214.05 at pp. 8–9). Every incoming and outgoing letter is reviewed by Counter Terrorism Unit staff before it moves, and foreign-language mail is translated first (PS 5214.05 at p. 9). In a CMU, special mail is narrowed to privileged attorney correspondence only — mail to courts, Congress, U.S. Attorneys and the media is handled as general correspondence — and outgoing attorney mail may not be sealed before it is inspected in the person’s presence (PS 5214.05 at p. 10). There is no frequency or volume limit on correspondence with U.S. courts, federal judges, U.S. Attorneys’ offices, Members of Congress, the Bureau, other federal law enforcement, or their attorney (PS 5214.05 at p. 10). See our summary of the CMU policy, and the related restriction under a Central Inmate Monitoring separation assignment (PS 5180.05 at p. 5).

Writing to the media is special mail too. A person may write “through special mail” to a named news media representative, may not be compensated for it, and may not act as a reporter; incoming media correspondence is opened and inspected (28 C.F.R. § 540.20). See news media contact policy.

Where mail sits against the other channels

	Postal mail	TRULINCS / CorrLinks email	Telephone
Who can start it	Either side	The person inside adds you; you accept	Only the person inside dials out
Cost to the person inside	Postage; paper and envelopes free	A per-minute fee, Bureau-set	A flat per-minute rate, Bureau-set
Cost to you	A stamp	Nothing	Collect charges, if collect
Volume limit	None (six pages a week in a CMU)	13,000 characters per message	Up to 510 minutes a month
Reaches segregation?	Yes — full privileges	Incoming only	Restricted
Can be confidential?	Yes, if properly marked special mail	No — never privileged	Yes, on a properly placed attorney call
Speed	Ordinarily delivered within 24 hours of arriving at the mail room	Held a minimum of one hour, then released	Real time

Sources: PS 5265.14; PS 5800.16 at p. 20; PS 4500.13 at pp. 124, 130; PS 5264.09 at p. 7; PS 5214.05 at p. 9; 28 C.F.R. §§ 540.16(b), 540.18(a), 540.21(b). The CorrLinks page carries the full six-column version of this comparison.

What to actually write

The rules are the easy part. The letter is harder, and it is what your loved one is waiting for.

• Write about ordinary life. The garden, the dog, what the neighbors are arguing about, what you had for dinner. Detail is the thing that is missing inside, and it is what makes a letter re-readable — and letters do get re-read, many times.
• Number your letters. Mail arrives out of order. “Letter 7 of 2026” tells them nothing is missing and tells you something is, if they say 6 never came.
• Do not write about the case. General correspondence may be read (28 C.F.R. § 540.14(a)), and mail can be referred to law enforcement (28 C.F.R. § 540.13). Legal discussion belongs in properly marked special mail with counsel.
• Do not ask them to relay anything. Sending correspondence to one address with directions to pass it to someone else, or using a fictitious return address, is a High-severity prohibited act under Code 296 (PS 5270.09 at p. 49).
• Do not enclose anything. No cash, no stamps, no gift cards, no Polaroids, no glitter, no perfume, no pressed flowers. Plain paper and plain ink.
• Include your full name and full return address. Both for the mail room and so they can add you accurately to their contact list.
• Send a card the plain way. An ordinary paper greeting card is generally fine; a musical or padded one is not, because it cannot be inspected without being destroyed (PS 5800.16 at p. 20).
• Keep writing when they cannot write back. They may be out of stamps, in transit, or in the SHU. Silence is rarely a decision.

Related reading: how to prepare for prison, the first day in prison and the intake process, and inmate visitation for when a letter is not enough.

What the mail codes are, if something goes wrong

Mail misconduct is charged at three severity levels under PS 5270.09, Inmate Discipline Program:

Code	Conduct	Severity	Good conduct time exposure
196	Use of the mail for an illegal purpose, or to commit or further a Greatest category prohibited act	Greatest	Disallowance ordinarily 50–75% (27–41 days) of the year’s available GCT (p. 46)
296	Use of the mail for abuses other than criminal activity that circumvent mail monitoring — special mail abuse, writing in code, sending or receiving mail through unauthorized means, sending mail for others without authorization, directing correspondence to be relayed onward, using a fictitious return address	High	Disallowance ordinarily 25–50% (14–27 days) (p. 50)
396	Use of the mail for abuses that do not circumvent mail monitoring, or to commit or further a Moderate category act	Moderate	Disallowance ordinarily up to 25% (1–14 days) (p. 53)

Codes and text at PS 5270.09 pp. 46, 49, 53. One point worth flagging, because the wrong code is written more often than you would expect: electronic messaging misuse is not charged under the mail codes directly. The Bureau’s instruction is that “[c]odes 199, 299, and 399, most like 196, 296, and 396, respectively, may be appropriate for inmates using electronic messaging (e.g., TRULINCS) in violation of policy” (PS 5270.09 at p. 18). If an incident report about email cites 296, the charge is written under the wrong provision. See inmate discipline proceedings and the BP-A0288 incident report form.

What changed, and what has not

The core mail policies are stable and old. PS 5265.14 and PS 5800.16 both date from 5 April 2011; PS 5266.11 from 9 November 2011. None was among the 23 Program Statements the Bureau reissued effective 22 June 2026. The 2011 correspondence policy rescinded PS 5265.11 (9 July 1999) and made two changes families still feel: it required that funds intended for the commissary account be mailed by the sender directly to the centralized commissary account center, and it eliminated outgoing special/legal mail drop boxes (PS 5265.14 at p. 1). That second change is why outgoing legal mail is hand-delivered to a staff member rather than posted in a box.

Three things around the mail rules did move, and they matter:

1. The Trust Fund manual was reissued. PS 4500.13 is dated 7 May 2026 and carries the TRULINCS mailing-label rules, the contact-list limits, and the money-deposit mechanics behind everything on this page.
2. CMU correspondence rules were rebuilt. PS 5214.05 (26 February 2026) rescinded the 2015 edition, introduced the three-phase structure, and set the six-pages-once-a-week correspondence cap (p. 9).
3. The facility roster changed. The Bureau announced closures and camp-to-FSL conversions effective 1 July 2026, and several facility records now carry dated warnings advising senders to confirm where someone is housed before mailing — FCI Petersburg Low among them. Confirm the location before you post. See major federal prison closures and deactivations.

For plain-English summaries of the underlying documents, see inmate correspondence, mail management, incoming publications and the trust fund and commissary manual, in the full BOP policy library.

When a mail problem is worth escalating

Most mail problems are addressing problems, and they resolve as soon as the envelope is right. Some do not: a rejection notice that never came, a restricted-correspondence classification imposed without the written reasons and the chance to respond that 28 C.F.R. § 540.15(c)(2) requires, properly marked attorney mail opened outside your loved one’s presence, or a restricted special mail status that has gone past its 180-day review.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, with more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience and a nationwide federal practice run on an intentionally small caseload. We handle Bureau of Prisons administrative matters — designation, discipline, medical care, First Step Act time credits and communication restrictions — alongside federal appeals, § 2255 motions, compassionate release and early release planning. If mail is not reaching your family member, contact us at (843) 620-1100. See also our federal prison consulting services and the problems we help with.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Writing to a Federal Inmate

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026