Category: Inmate Life
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We wonder all the time: why do so many inmates feel compelled to go sideways on their case manager? When it comes to individual positions and authority, the warden and the captain of any given prison might have the most power and influence over day-to-day prison life. But, it’s your case manager who has the…
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This Call Is From A Federal Prison. You Will Not Be Charged For This Call. Starting this Tuesday, August 19th, inmates are purported to once again have access to 510 total minutes per month. If they’re FSA eligible and programming to their FSA needs, they will be given 300 free minutes per month with the…
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When It Comes To The BOP, There’s No Immediate Gratification What many inmates and inmate’s families need to understand is that immediate gratification doesn’t exist when it comes to issues regarding federal prison. For instance, the purported changes in applying FSA and SCA benefits. One week ago, Rick Stover called Federal Prison Tips founder Kyle…
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Or are they just a myth? Actually, there are good case managers in federal prison. Most think by the nature of the job, they can only be somewhere between okay and bad. And most will confirm this through their experience – the vast majority of case managers don’t seem to act with inmates best interests…
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Kyle Talks About Being On The Get A Grip Podcast And What’s Happened In The Year Since Then As I sit here and write this story for federalprisontips.com it’s about 11pm on Sunday August 10, 2025. This morning I got one of those “Facebook memory posts” on my timeline about me being in Columbus Ohio…
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Where To Best Report Prison Issues We get hundreds of emails, DMs, voicemails, and messages about ongoing issues happening to loved ones in the federal prison system. I was asked to use my platform to convey to our community that there’s places to go when you have complaints and concerns about the safety and security…
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How Can You Maximize Your Pay In Federal Prison? Many federal prisons require their inmate population to work. This is especially relevant at federal prison camps. At all federal prisons, if you’re working a regular job outside of UNICOR, you’re working on a pay scale starting at Grade A, which is 12 cents per hour,…
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Eating Good In The Clink There are a lot of prison cooking creators on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Some of the recipes look interesting, others actually look really good. How do you make them? Well, a lot of videos will show you step-by-step. You can also find a lot of cookbooks. One of the best…
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What is a Federal Prison Camp, Anyway? A federal prison camp (FPC) is also known as a minimum security facility. Generally, they have the most relaxed enforcement of rules, and the easiest prison culture for all walks of life to integrate into. Still, there are a few things to always keep in mind. Stay away…
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Do Incident Reports Or “Shots” Affect Me During My Sentence? The question really is – how could they not? It’s incredible how many inmates don’t think an incident report, also known as a “shot,” is serious business when it comes to their time. A shot in federal prison can affect your custody classification (sending you…
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If Your Loved One’s Case Manager Isn’t Doing Their Job, Should You Call? Calling your loved one’s case manager in federal prison is a horrible idea. We understand that when you have a loved one in federal prison, you want to advocate for them. Most men in federal prison go to their loved ones on…
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Conditions Are Terrible Everywhere – It’s A Problem Whether your loved one is at McKean, Florence, FPC Montgomery, Pensacola, Thompson, Beaumont, or Morgantown, whichever federal prison it is, we know is the absolute worst. As a company staffed by those who have been justice impacted, none of us discount for a second that your loved…
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Know What You’re Getting Into This is for those who are sitting at home on pretrial or waiting to self report, thereby meaning you’ve received some sort of bond. Those who might be watching this from inside federal prison have probably already learned these facts via conversations with other inmates, or simply by observing daily…
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Prison Yard Politics Are No Joke Our receptionists get calls from loved ones all the time who worry about what their loved one needs to do once they hit a federal prison yard. Who should they run with? Where should they spend their time? Where should they eat? What are the do’s and don’ts in…
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Cash App Payments, Legality, & If We Accept Them You’ve probably heard from other TikTok creators in the prison space that you can go to prison for sending or receiving cash app payments from somebody in prison, whether it’s state or federal prison. The truth is, there’s no actual law on the books in regards…
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Who Benefits From Keeping Inmates Locked Up? There’s lots of misinformation floating around inside prison walls, and these “facts” get used to justify observations made by the BOP. Inmates have nothing else to do, and think they know what they’re talking about, then start passing around theories as truth. We’re here to set the record…
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How Do You Teach a Class or Get Other Jobs in Federal Prison? When Kyle Sandler, founder of Federal Prison Tips was incarcerated at the federal prison camp in Montgomery, he taught business classes, public speaking classes, and other ACE classes. ACE stands for Adult Continuing Education, and is how most formal classes are categorized.…
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Mind Your P’s and Q’s Federal Prison Tips is the largest influencer network in the federal prison space on social media, bar none. We have 5 million views every month between Instagram and Tiktok. Whether you’re an inmate in federal prison or a staff member at a federal prison, please read this article carefully. Why?…
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Life in the Segregated Housing Unit The SHU, short for “Segregated Housing Unit,” is where you go for a number of reasons, including disciplinary segregation, administrative segregation, quarantine, and sometimes, when you’re new to the compound. The most common reason a federal inmate might find themselves in the SHU is for disciplinary reasons. This can…
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What Do You Have To Do To Survive A Prison Term? Those are the only three things you need to know to survive and thrive throughout the course of your federal prison sentence. This comes from Kyle Sandler, founder of Federal Prison Tips, who is gay, Hawaiian, and Jewish. Utilizing this advice, he survived two…