How we check, and corrections
People use these pages to get a letter to someone, so a wrong address costs a week and a stamp, or worse. Here is how the information is put together, what its limits are, and everything we have had to fix.
Where it comes from
- Only the prison system's own pages. Every address, mail rule and messaging company on the 1,275prison pages comes from the department of corrections' own website (and bop.gov for federal prisons), or the messaging company's own site. Not other directories, not news, not memory.
- Quotes are checked word for word. When a page quotes a department, the quote was checked against the text of that page.
- Real dates. “Checked” dates are the day the department's page was read (October 7, 2026 for the current set), not the day we last rebuilt the site.
- Blocked sites.A few department sites block automated reading. For those we read the department's own page as saved by the Internet Archive, and treat it as older information.
What the answers mean
- “The department doesn't say” means we looked and its pages don't answer the question. We never fill a gap from another state or a guess.
- Where letters go, what happens to them, what they get are three separate answers. A letter can go straight to the prison and still be scanned there.
- A state rule is not a federal rule. A federal prison in Florida follows the Bureau of Prisons, not the Florida department.
- Listing rules.“We found no rule against it” means exactly that: the department's published policies we read don't forbid it. Where a department does have a pen pal rule, its page quotes it.
- The department is the final word. Rules change. Check the linked department page before you send anything but a plain letter.
Found something wrong?
Write to hello@prisonpenpalhub.comwith the page and what it should say. We check it against the department's page, fix it, and log it below. Every prison page has a “Tell us” link too. For a problem with a person's profile, use Report a profile.
Corrections log
Was: One "mail scanned" yes/no mixed up where letters go with what happens to them. Illinois showed "No, to the facility" while Illinois scans or photocopies letters at the prison.
Now: Every prison system now answers three questions separately: where letters go, what happens to them, and what the person receives, each from the department's own page.
Was: Address blocks showed our own "[Full name] [ID number]" line on top of the department's name line, and some notes showed internal research wording (for example "see statewide_mail_format").
Now: Each envelope has one name line in the department's own words, the prison's real name filled in where the department asks for it, and notes written for the person sending the letter.
Was: Department-wide address formats for Colorado and Alaska were shown as central mail addresses. They are instructions, not addresses: letters go to each prison.
Now: Those prisons show their own mailing address.
Was: Seven New York prison addresses were missing their ZIP codes.
Now: ZIP codes added from each prison's page on the New York DOCCS site. Virginia's own pages print its prison P.O. Boxes without ZIP codes, so those pages say so and link to the USPS ZIP lookup instead of guessing.
Was: The messaging guide said every app works the same way: sign up, find the person, pay per message.
Now: Each app has its own steps. In federal prisons the person inside adds you first; on GettingOut both sides accept; several states are one-way.
Was: State and prison pages answered "Can someone here be listed?" with a flat "Yes."
Now: They say what we actually found: no rule against it in the department's published policies, and that the department's page is the final word.