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Must read Terms of Service & Privacy Policy and be at least 18

 
rtaylor1012

Hey guys! So I'm pretty new to this (I joined very recently) and had initially sent out some mail to people I felt I connected with. I sent a few Jaypays out and received responses almost immediately. My problem seems to be Corrlinks! When I registered for Corrlinks I added the information for the inmate I had hoped to contact, which was fine, everything seemed all good. I had sent out snail mail to this particular inmate and haven't received any response yet (it is still early so I am not loosing hope) but I am now suddenly allowed to send messages via Corrlinks TO her? I believe she is incarcerated in a state that does not allow them to send Corrlinks messages, only receive. I thought inmates had to add you first on Corrlinks? I never received an invitation from her to join neither did I even send her my email address in the letter which I guess they're supposed to have before they invite you. Are they able to "add" you from their end if you have already "added" them? And now I can't enter in any other number for additional inmates it continuously says "inmate not found" no matter how many times I enter the number with the corresponding agency! Obviously the website and customer support is not great but I was just wondering if anybody else has experienced a similar problem or had any advice for navigating what seems to be a super dated system!


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ST4s

@Northernyank, I don't think federal (my only experience with CorrLinks) prints anything out for someone in the SHU, for example. My experience is if it's SHU time, my friends go dark on CorrLinks until they're out ot that situation - where any unread emails are waiting on the kiosk when they log in.

@Redbird, it varies by facility or state. For example, Colorado prints JPays out since Colorado got rid of the tablets. A friend in Michigan who I JPay with has a situation where the kiosk doesn't sync to the tablets (an equipment problem), so it's speed-reading at the kiosk - without a digital copy he can read or respond to without a clock running. And another friend in Ohio was back and forth on his tablet, exclusively, where every thread was saved (although his tablet bit the dust, but that's another story). For CorrLinks in federal, there's always the option for the inmate to print out a hard copy if they want to pay for it.

 
Redbird

@ST4:  I thought with JPay, the mail center in the prison actually prints out the letter on real paper and gives it to the inmate, so they have the paper document in their possession indefinitely.  Whereas with CorrLinks the prisoner basically has to read the email and then memorize/remember its contents.

 
Northernyank

@ST4s, at the moment his facility doesn't have corrlinks but that's interesting what you brought up about 'paying for a printout of an email'. Because of him being in isolation the mail room has always printed out free of charge his emails and pics off of jpay. Of course this is State, so I'm curious to see what happens when he moves again and has to use corrlinks. I would always send him a pre-paid because he's only allowed kiosk once a week, but if I send a pre-paid they give him a jpay sheet of paper that he can handwrite a message on, drop it with the rest of his mail, and the mailroom scans it and sends it as an email. 

 
ST4s

Oh, one more thing... CorrLinks messages self-destruct on their platform after 60 days. I mostly use the mobile app, but every now and then, I log-into their website and print all the incoming and outgoing messages to PDFs, so I can hang onto them.

 
ST4s

@Redbird, I don't know if I'd say CorrLinks is more of a hassle than JPay. There are some things I prefer about it over JPay: speed, reliability, and character count being at the top. Getting it to work is more MS-DOS-y (old school) than Windows 10-y, so yep, that's a thing. But once you're past that, it's no less of a hassle than anything else: snail mail, phone calls, GTL, visits, and every other hurdle they put between the inside and the outside.

Re: kiosk time on CorrLinks, yes, the inmates have a clock running while reading and writing, but it's the same deal with GTL and JPay too, depending on the facility and other variables.

Re: hard copies: inmates can print out hard copies of CorrLinks messages for a per page fee. I think it costs so many TruLincs units - CorrLinks' currency on the inside that counts against the "time bank".

Re: paper letters that can be kept and read infinite times? Rodger that. When one of my friends picked up a topic we'd written about three years ago (and hadn't since, but unbeknownst to me, had been rereading my old letters all along) it absolutely blew my mind.

 
Northernyank

Good question Redbird. I've only had to use jpay as well and now I'll need to get acquainted with corrlinks. 

 
Redbird

Also, another question: Since inmates get very limited email time, does this mean that each time they read CorrLinks, they basically have to scan quickly and then commit its contents to memory?  (unlike an actual paper handwritten letter, which can be kept and read infinite times)

 
Redbird

Sounds like CorrLinks is far more of a hassle than JPay, is that right?  I have only ever used JPay up to this point to write to inmates.

 
FrankieBones

I don't know how it works at the state level, but in federal prisons they have to give your contact information to their prison counselor who will send through the information, Corrlinks wil generate an email with a clickable link to join Corrlinks and/or add the particular inmate to your contacts and then once that is set up, it sets up a "forum" like this except just between you two whee you can send messages back and forth. Or you can download the app for iOS/Android and it comes up on your phone like a text message.

It's worth getting the app, it avoids the captcha which can be as annoying as this one below your reply, and it comes up instantly when the message is delivered to your phone. It takes about 2 hours to go through. The only thing you can't do on Corrlinks is send emojis or pictures/video/audio. You can send photos by email though, print outs, or books  and they love receiving them.

 
rtaylor1012

Yes! Thanks for the input  - I really appreciate it! Any new bit of knowledge helps :)

 
ST4s

Welcome! I jotted down a thing on CorrLinks for federal here, but I'm not the guy to ask about how it works for state facilities. Maybe check the FAQ on their website? Maybe someone else knows? Good luck!