Orleans Parish Prison: Guidelines For Family and Friends of Inmates

If you have a loved one in the Orleans Parish Prison, you may want to know how you can contact him or her. We have listed out what you should know.

How Do I Locate An Inmate?

If you want to search for an inmate that you think is in Orleans Parish Prison, you should visit the website of this prison to see its ‘Inmate Roster’. You can easily find out if an inmate is thereby using their full name. The Inmate locator allows you to know the details concerning the inmate, what time they will be released and what their status is currently. You can also find out about visiting hours too. If you want to put a request to visit, you can do that there too.

Can I Phone An Inmate?

If your loved one is in this correcting facility, there is a great chance that he or she will be allowed to make and receive calls via a third-party provider, Securus or Pigeonly.

You are expected to create an account with them to make or receive the calls. You also have to be in the approved call list before it can be done.

To find out more, visit Pigeonly, Securus or contact Orleans Parish Prison for more details

What are the visiting hours?

The visiting hours at Orleans Parish Prison is done mostly on weekends. Every inmate is given three half-hour visits every weekend.

You must sign up for the visit before you come, at least twenty minutes before you head there.

Visiting Hours

Monday — 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM

Tuesday — 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM

Wednesday — 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM

Thursday — 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM

Friday — 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM

Saturday — 7:30 Am to 2:30 PM

Sunday — 7:30 Am to 2:30 PM

How Do I Send Mail?

Being in prison is not easy for inmates, and that is why it won’t be a bad idea to contact them. If you want to send an inmate a mail, there are some rules that you are followed. It is important to note that the mail will be read before passed to the inmate. If it is noticed to contain any illegal thing or words that promote violence or teaches one how to create a weapon, it will be rejected. You are also not allowed to paint the letter with lipstick, perfume, doodles, markers and so on. It has to be a standard letter. You won’t be allowed to send in books, magazines and so on with the mail. If you want to buy books for your loved one in prison, you should consider contacting the Orleans Parish Corrections.

You can also communicate with an inmate using email. To know the email address to use, contact the Orleans Parish Corrections.

If you want to send a mail to an inmate in Orleans Parish Prison, you need to ask for their mailing address and the time that mailing is allowed. Dropping off mails by hand to the correctional facility is not allowed.

You should address the mail as:

Inmate Name

C/O Orleans Parish Prison

531 South Broad Street, New Orleans, LA, 70119

How do I put money on an inmate’s books?

If your loved one is in Orleans Parish Corrections, you can send him or her money through the Inmate’s book accounts. There are different ways that this can be done. How much you are expected to pay for the fee changes as time goes on. You should start by asking the Orleans Parish Corrections to find you the ID number of the inmate you want to send money to.

You can send money to an inmate in Orleans Parish Corrections by using TouchPay direct. You can do this transfer using a TouchPay kiosk that is in the lobby of the Orleans Parish Corrections. The cash is immediately deposited in the inmate account. This means that you don’t have to worry about the waiting period that occurs when the card is used. 

If you are not able to head to Orleans Parish Corrections, you can also send your money by contacting the correction facility or TouchPay through its website.

You can also use Securus, GTL, Western Union and MoneyGram to send the money from wherever you may be.

You can decide to deposit it using your Credit and Debit cards. To do this, you are asked to provide the details of the inmate and your details too. If you do not know the details of the inmate, ask Orleans Parish Corrections.

The transfer period usually occurs within twenty-four hours. Once you have sent the money, you can contact Orleans Parish Corrections to see if the funds have been credited.

Does Orleans Parish Prison Have A Commissary?

Like other correctional centers, this has a commissary with items that can be purchased by inmates. Inmates are permitted to purchase commissary items while in the correctional facility. Anything bought is removed from their account.  Friends and family members can send money to the account of an inmate. Immediately the money is sent, it is credited to the account of the inmate. There is a fee for this.

With the money sent by the family or friends of an inmate, the inmate can use the commissary. This is a general store that sells items to an inmate. The inmates purchase things making use of a catalog, while the delivery is made to the inmates at least once in a week.

An inmate must have money in his account with Orleans Parish Prison before he can patronize the commissary.

The prices of the things sold at the commissary tend to change as time goes on. An inmate can get numerous things at the commissary like an assortment of snack foods, toiletries, reading materials, and stationery.

A family member of an inmate can use Inmate Commissary to put a commissary deposit for the inmate to use. The money can be sent to the Orleans Parish Corrections by making use of Western Union or MoneyGram. The money is then sent to the Commissary accounts.

Before you send money to Orleans Parish Corrections, it is advisable to contact them to ensure that the said inmate has been booked and sent there.

You can send your funds to the commissary account by heading to the closest MoneyGram agent around you. You could also use Pigeonly to find out more concerning this.

There are canteen services that are available to inmates in Orleans Parish Corrections. There, they can buy what they wish using their inmate commissary account. There is a list of things that can be purchased from this canteen service. The commissary account is usually funded by what they earned as wage, or from what is sent to them by their family members and friends.

You can deposit the money to their accounts, but you have to find out the inmate ID, and their names before you make the deposit. To find out about the Inmate ID, you should consider contacting the Orleans Parish Corrections.

You can also decide to order the commissary online too. To do this, you need to consider contacting the Orleans Parish Corrections for what items can be gotten at the Prison Commissary. You can also Contact Pigeonly to find out more concerning the Orleans Parish Corrections, New Orleans, Orleans Parish County, Louisiana.

How do I bail out an inmate at Orleans Parish Prison?

Co-signers are permitted to assist an accused in Orleans to easily post the bond. This can be done by using a bail bond agent or paying for the bond using cash.

Family friends and friends can also help. This can be done via a personal surety bond undertaking or PSBU.

A third party is allowed to get an accused released without paying for a bond. You will be expected to pay two hundred dollars, which is a nonrefundable fee. Before a personal surety bond undertaking can work, it must be signed by a judge.

Before the judge signs on it, he or she holds a hearing to see if the third party has the money in case the accused refused to come to court. If the accused does not show in court, you are left to pay for the penalty. This means that before you use this option, you have to be sure.

If you have decided to post bail, there are things that you should bear in mind.

It is important to note that the Orleans Parish Prison is the sole correctional center inside the Orleans Parish. There may be other correctional centers that are in other parishes that can be seen in New Orleans, but only this correctional center is seen in Orleans Parish. 

You can’t start a bail process if the accused has not been booked yet. The said accused must have been processed.

Once that is done, the accused is allowed to get a co-signer to bail him out. He can also contact a bail bond company to do that.

If the crime was a misdemeanor, the amount that will be paid for the bill is normally gotten from the bond schedule. If it is a felony, a hearing is normally done. This ensures that the process ends up taking some hours to a few days.

There are different kinds of bail alternatives in existence and they can be used by accused. They are:

Personal recognizance

An accused can ask to be released on personal recognizance. This is done via a criminal defense attorney. This is also called a signature release.

Here, the accused is not asked to pay any money. He is made to sign an agreement that states that he will attend every scheduled court hearing. This is meant for those that have been arrested for a misdemeanor that is not violent in nature. It is also used by first-time defendants. If you fall under any of the above, your criminal defense attorney can ask for this.

Cash bond

For this bond, you are expected to pay money to cover court costs. You are not made to meet a bail bond agent or pay a large amount of money.

One issue with this is that you are expected to pay every cent in the bail. When you choose this option, you end up spending money that you would have spent in getting a criminal defense attorney. You can make use of co-signers to post the cash bonds for you.

Commercial bond

A lot of accused is not able to pay the entire money asked for in the bail, hence, a lot of offenders use this.

A bail bond agent has to be used here. The agent will request for a percent of the entire money asked as bail. It is normally thirteen percent in Orleans Parish.

The co-signer or accused signs an agreement that protects the bail bond agent in case the accused defaults with any of the conditions. If anything is broken in this agreement, the bail bond agent is allowed to sue both the co-signer and the accused.

The personal security bond undertaking

This can be said to bear some similarities with the PR release. This is because you are not expected to post any bond. For this to work, there has to be a third party that will act for the accused. If the defendant refuses to appear in court, the financial liability is borne by such person. 

How bail is set

In Orleans Parish, there is a pre-set bail schedule. This schedule is utilized to set the bail amount for misdemeanors. This is to ensure that it is easy to tell what the accused is expected to pay.

If it is a felony, a court hearing has to be done to determine the bail. Before the bail is set, a number of factors have to be considered. Doing this increases the amount of time that the accused spends behind bars.

This is one reason you need a criminal defense attorney like Carl Barkemeyer to represent you and speed up the process.

He will ask for a PR release if available. He could also ask for a bail reduction hearing, if necessary. If it is noticed that the bail amount is too high for the accused to afford, this is asked for.

Bond costs and options

When a PR release is gotten, you are not expected to pay a dime for it. You are expected to pay an amount for other bail options available. In PSBU, you are expected to pay a fee of two hundred dollars.

If you use cash bail, every cent asked in the bail must be paid, as well as a first charge fee of forty-four dollars and extra charges of thirty dollars.

If you use a commercial bond, you are expected to pay 13 percent of the bail to a bail bond agent.

Does Orleans Parish Prison have doctors?

There are doctors that take care of sick inmates in these correctional facilities. They handle minor ailments. If the medical situation worsens, the inmate is referred to where the issue can be handled.

The officials in this detention center offer the continuous supervision of the inmates. They ensure that weapons are not brought into the prison, neither are they made there.

The workers in this detention center are not allowed to carry weapons, but they are permitted to have pepper spray.

There are a lot of surveillance cameras around that ensure the building is monitored every second of the day. These cameras can be seen everywhere, save for the single-person cells and showers.

Those in custody wear different attire from those that are inmates. This ensures the officers to know what class they fall under.

Those that are in custody are normally kept in a place, where others that are been accused of similar crimes are kept.

You won’t see this detention facility keeping people separate from others because of their race. This is not permitted at all.

To ensure that safety is promoted in the prison, the management ensures that members of different gangs are not housed together. This prevents riots and other issues. For safety reasons, different genders are kept in different sections. The safety of the inmates is paramount to the management of the prison.

Those that are currently in custody are those that are awaiting trial. For those under this section that are not violent, they are allowed to reside in rooms classified as open dorms. Those that have not been charged with a violent crime fall under this section.

For those that have been charged with a violent crime, they are not allowed to reside in open dorm rooms. Those that are known to misbehave are not allowed in open dorm rooms. They are permitted to live in small isolation cells. Those in these cells are regularly searched and monitored. To ensure that they are not up to something mischievous, the guards regularly conduct room searches and check. Someone that is in custody is given a bed, desk and stool.

Those that are in custody and have been placed in suicide watch are not given anything. They are not allowed to wear clothes, but they are given a blanket and bed.

If it has been noticed that the safety of an inmate is not guaranteed, he or she is placed in protective custody. Homosexuals and transsexuals are usually kept in protective custody because they are harassed a lot.

If you have a family member or friend that is currently at Orleans Parish Prison and the said person is being targeted, it is advisable that you contact the authorities.

If you have a loved one there that has a medical need that is not being taken care of, you need to lay a complaint. Every inmate has the right to medical care.

Usually, medical and prescription drug needs are taken care of by the Orleans Parish Prison. There are some wards designed for them.

Have You Been Arrested? Or Has Your Loved One Been Arrested?

If you have been arrested and booked at the Orleans Parish Prison, it is important that you have the best New Orleans criminal defense attorney that can represent you. It doesn’t matter if it is a misdemeanor or a felony, you need a criminal defense attorney that knows his onion to represent you.

It is common to see those that have been charged with misdemeanor taking the case for granted. They feel that they may walk, do community service or do a few months in jail. It is important to note that there is a thin line between both crimes. Someone that has been arraigned for a misdemeanor can have his crime bumped up to a felony if evidence exists to prove it. Sometimes, the evidence could be gotten from the words that the accused mistakenly uttered. To prevent you from worsening your case and digging a deeper hole yourself, you need help. It doesn’t matter where you may be, whether in a Correctional facility or at home, you need the Barkemeyer Law Firm to represent you. You can contact us by calling 504-226-2299.

We will analyze your case, look at the evidence, do our investigating and do other things to represent you. We try to negotiate deals if necessary.