Phone Calls at FCI Ray Brook

How Federal Calls Work

Calls from FCI Ray Brook run on TRUFONE, the Bureau’s own phone system, paid from the person’s commissary account. Under Bureau policy:

• Fifteen minutes per call, then it cuts off.
• 300 minutes a month, with an extra 100 ordinarily added in November and December.
• Up to thirty approved numbers on the list.

Third-party calls, credit card calls and 800, 888, 900 and 976 numbers are not allowed.

You Cannot Add Yourself, and You Cannot Call In

The approved list is built by the person inside, through TRULINCS. There is no family form and nothing to register. If your number is missing, they add it.

There is no inbound line. Nobody at FCI Ray Brook can be put through to a family member. The one exception is a death or serious illness in the immediate family: call the main line, 518-897-4000, and ask for the Chaplain or the Unit Team, who pass the message on.

Paying for Calls

Minutes come out of the same commissary account the family funds through Des Moines, MoneyGram or Western Union. If calls stop around the end of a month, the 300 minutes may be used up, or the balance may be empty. Neither is a sign that anything is wrong.

CorrLinks Email

Federal email runs through CorrLinks, and the person inside starts it.

1. They add your email address through TRULINCS.
2. CorrLinks emails you to accept or block the contact.
3. The invitation expires after ten days. Miss it and they have to add you again.
4. Once accepted, you exchange text messages on the CorrLinks website.

Text only, no photos, no attachments, and a 13,000 character limit per message. Block by mistake and the person inside has to ask the Trust Fund Office to undo it.

Which Calls Are Recorded

Calls may be monitored and recorded, and using the phone counts as consent. Properly arranged attorney calls are the exception.

While Visiting Is Suspended

With all visiting at Ray Brook suspended until further notice, calls and email are how most families stay in contact. The Bureau does not publish a per-minute rate or phone hours for the facility. Rates are posted inside.

If calls stop, check the locator first. A move, a court trip from the detention center or a lockdown can interrupt the phones without anything having gone wrong for the person.

What a Call Cannot Carry

Fifteen minutes goes quickly, and nothing from it stays behind. Pigeonly turns photos from your phone into prints and posts them to FCI Ray Brook with the register number on the envelope, so there is something to hold between calls.