How to Send Money to the Suzanne Kays Facility

Four Routes and What Each Costs

How	Where	Fee
Internet	accesscorrections.com	as low as $2.95
Phone	1-866-345-1884	as low as $3.95
Retail cash	CashPayToday.com	flat $5.00
Kiosk	lobby of each jail, cash, 24 hours	not published

The online route is the cheapest published option. On a $20 deposit the difference between $2.95 and $5.00 is around ten percent of what you are sending, which is worth a minute of setup.

The kiosk fee is the one gap here. Dallas County does not publish it, so if you are depositing cash in the lobby, ask or read the screen before confirming.

The Refusal List

Since February 14, 2022, Dallas County has refused all of the following: personal checks, payroll checks, money orders, tax refunds, stimulus checks, insurance checks, child support checks, and Social Security checks.

The handbook allows one narrow exception. A verifiable check from the US Government or the State of Texas can be mailed to:

[Full Legal Name, Book-in Number]
PO Box 660334
Dallas, TX 75266

Those are held until the county’s bank clears them. If the person is released before it clears, they can come back to collect the funds.

When a Deposit Will Be Rejected

Dallas County lists four situations where money is not accepted at all, and these catch people at exactly the wrong moment:

• The person has not yet been processed through the Vault, meaning intake is not finished
• The person is a Class C city prisoner
• The person is on work release or is a weekender
• The person is already in the release process

The first and last are the common ones. Money sent within hours of an arrest, or on the day someone is being released, may not go through at all.

Commissary Packages Are a Separate System

Alongside the trust account, Dallas County runs a package program through Access Securepak, ordered at dallascountypackages.com or by calling 1-800-546-6283. It takes MasterCard, Visa and Discover.

The limits are firm: one package per person per week, $75 maximum. Orders placed before 6:00 AM on Thursday ship that week, and anything after that waits for the following week.

If the person is released before the package arrives, there is a 72-hour window to claim it through the vendor at 866-754-2812, extension 4851 or 3313, after which packages are disposed of. Customer service runs 7:30 AM to 11:00 PM Central on weekdays and 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Saturdays.

The source document for this program is undated, so the pricing is worth confirming with the vendor before a first order.

What the Money Can Be Spent On, and What Can Be Taken

The handbook notes that so-called luxury items may be restricted if a housing area fails cleaning standards, and that purchases can be capped at $50 or less when the jail judges it necessary. So the balance on the account is not always fully spendable.

Two charges come out of the account directly. Losing or damaging the ID card costs up to $10.00. Deliberately damaging a tablet costs $300.00.

Phone Money Is Not the Same Account

The trust fund pays for commissary. Phone calls run through Smart Communications, funded directly with the vendor. Dallas County never states this plainly on either page, which is why families regularly put money in one place expecting it to work in the other.

Our phone calls guide covers setting that account up, including a warning about an obsolete vendor still listed on the county’s own FAQ.

If Someone Is Indigent

A person with under $5.00 on their account for 72 hours or more can request a free hygiene pack and correspondence supplies, meaning paper, pencils and stamped envelopes, by submitting a kite. It is reissued every two weeks.