How to Send Money to the Bill Clements Unit

The List You Have to Be On First

This is the rule that decides whether a deposit works at all, and it has nothing to do with how you send it.

Since September 1, 2020, TDCJ has only accepted deposits from people on the incarcerated person’s Visitors List or his phone list. If you are on neither, the money is rejected no matter which method you used, and you find out after the fact rather than before.

Getting onto the Visitors List is something he starts, not you. He submits your name on Form RO-1, along with your physical address, phone number and relationship, up to a total of 10 names. TDCJ’s rules are explicit that a visitor cannot ask to be added. The phone list works through Securus Technologies registration instead, which is a separate process and often the faster of the two.

The practical order is worth getting right. Sort out which list you are on before the first deposit, not after a failed one, because a returned deposit costs you the wait and sometimes the money order fee as well. If you are not sure, the unit can tell you on (806) 381-7080.

One thing this rule does not do is tie the money to Amarillo.

Where a Money Order Actually Goes

A deposit goes into the TDCJ Inmate Trust Fund, a single statewide account system, and it is keyed to his eight-digit TDCJ number. The Clements Unit does not hold it. If he moves to another Panhandle unit or to a prison at the other end of Texas, the balance moves with him and nothing has to be re-sent.

That matters at this address specifically, because Clements holds men at custody levels G1 through G5 plus Security Detention and Mental Health, and TDCJ also runs its only PAMIO program here, which people are referred into from other prisons and move on from afterwards. Housing at Clements changes more than it does at a settled general-population unit. The money does not care.

There are two ways to send it.

By money order, through the post. Made out to the TDCJ Inmate Trust Fund and sent to:

TDCJ Inmate Trust Fund
PO Box 60
Huntsville, TX 77342-0060

Include his full commitment name and his eight-digit TDCJ number so the fund can match the deposit to the right person. This address is not the Clements address and it is not the Dallas mail address either. Texas runs three separate destinations for three different things, which is genuinely confusing the first time.

Online, through eCommDirect. TDCJ’s own online deposit service. It is faster than the post and you get a record of the transaction, which is useful when something needs chasing.

The 14-Day Hold and the Deposits That Bounce

Three things reliably go wrong, and all three are avoidable.

Cash and personal checks come back. TDCJ returns both. A money order or an online deposit are the two routes that work.

Deposits of $500 or more are held for 14 days. The money is not lost, it is just not spendable during that window. If you are sending ahead of a commissary week or a specific need, that delay is worth planning around. Smaller deposits are not affected.

A missing or wrong TDCJ number causes most of the rest. The fund matches on the number, not on the unit and not on a nickname. His commitment name is the name TDCJ has on record, which is often not the name the family uses. The TDCJ locator gives you both, and copying the number straight from it is the safest way to get it right.

What the balance is for: commissary purchases, and phone credit where the account is set up that way, so a single deposit can cover both sides of staying in touch. TDCJ does not publish a spending cap for its units, so we are not going to quote one at you. The unit’s commissary staff can answer that on (806) 381-7080.

One last note specific to Amarillo: if he is not actually in TDCJ custody, none of this applies. The Potter County Detention Center and the Randall County Jail are both in Amarillo, both run by their counties, and both use their own separate deposit systems.