There are millions of men and women locked up in prisons all over the world. Each one has a history, a family, a mother, a father, friends, enemies, and so on. They are human just like you and me. There are things you need to think about when writing someone behind bars. This text is here to help you think of a few of those items. While we can never think of everything, hopefully this will help.

One question I always get is why are inmates in jails wanting to join these prison pen pal sites. There are many reasons. Most are very personal choices with each inmate and / or inmates family. There main goal is to get letters at mail call time. It is amazing how much a letter means. Some are looking for love behind bars. Some prison inmates want penpals so they can get spirital support so they can have a better life after getting parole. There are some inmates that will want money from you. Don’t fall into this trap.

Inmates don’t have access to computers, so email won’t help. All penpal letters must be sent by regular mail.

Inmates families or friends submit the listings. Inmates in prisons are convicted of a crime. They may post in their listing of what their crime is, but that is not confirmed information. Keep that in mind. Prisoners may seek money from you. While those funds do help them out with things from underwear to candy to stamps to pencils, keep in mind that you don’t want to send your life saving to them. Always remember what they say to you may not be the truth. They may ask for money, think before you send it to them! Just like it normal relationships, don’t think because they say "I love You" that they really do. Don’t send them tons of money just because they say "I love you". Never give out information like your social security number or any other really personal information. Your snail mail letter to your prison pen pal.

For sending your first letter, keep it short and to the point. Give a good description of yourself. You might want to include your age, height, weight, hair color, eye color, race, glasses, etc.. They might be interested in your family, but we suggest you do not give that information out. Also do not include your phone number since the only way most inmates can call is by collect call. These collect calls are a lot more expensive then your normal collect calls.

It is important that you personalize each letter that you compose for each individual. It is very easy to discover if a person is sending out numerous letters to the inmates using a duplicated letter and changing only the name of the inmate. This is not a sincere effort and will not produce the desired results that you would hope for. It is also highly recommended that you prepare your letters on a computer. If you have a very neat and presentable penmanship then handwriting would be more personal. You will have to be the judge of which method you want to use. If the inmates were given a choice of how their letters were written they would usually choose the more personal handwriting method.

Some people may want to send photos in your first letter. That is totally up to you. My thoughts are that it would be better in a followup letter.

Always remember when you are writing a inmate a pen pal letter that just like in real life, people can be untruthful.

If you decide to send a letter to a person behind bars, there are many inmate pen pal sites to choose from. Each site has their own features. I run the site letterstoprison.com . My site is a international site that will show you people from around the world. Prison Pen Pal sites are a great way to meet people.

Visit us at http://www.LettersToPrison.com