Phone Calls — Telephone Communication

Types of Telephone Contact

All calls that originate from the regular inmate telephones must be made collect or the calling party must have set up a pre–paid option.

Collect calls are billed to your phone using your carrier’s standard pricing per phone call.

Pre–paid calls are calls where time has been purchased in advance using offenderconnect.com, Advance–Pay or V Direct pre–paid calls.

Starting May 6, 2013 Advance Pay accounts will no longer be able to be set up or funded through myvconnect.com. Read more on the Advanced Pay page.

white exclamation mark on a red triangleEmergency Contact Needs

All family emergencies must go through the facility emergency messages process at your inmate’s location. If you have a death in the family or other emergent need to contact your inmate, call the Corrections Counselor. After regular hours, contact the shift officer.

Rules and How to Information

We know that telephone calls are important to maintaining family contacts. These tips will help your phone call stay connected and ensure continued phone contact.

Calling Rules

There is a 20–minute telephone call time limit. Both parties will hear a message at three intervals that tells them how much time remains (2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds). After 20 minutes, the telephone call will automatically disconnect.

Cautions List

  • Don’t attempt a three–way call
  • Don’t try to transfer the call
  • Don’t put the inmate on hold
  • Don’t use or answer “call waiting”
  • Don’t use a cordless phone
  • Don’t press numbers on the touch tone pad during the call
  • Don’t stop the conversation for any length of time, even short pauses may result in a disconnect
  • VAC encourages households that accept calls from inmates to have at least one land line in your residence.

When You Receive a Call

First you hear a pre–recorded message stating the correctional facility name and the name of the inmate. At that point you can:

  • Accept the collect call
  • Deny the collect call
  • Set up a prepaid account

If you will be setting up a pre–paid account, the call will be delayed and the inmate will be asked to wait at least 30 minutes before trying to call the number again in order to provide you time to establish an account.

International Telephone Calls

Individual facilities may allow inmates to place international calls. The inmate may ask if this is allowed at his or her particular facility and what procedures need to be followed.

Telephone Details

We want to keep all friends and family members aware of our services and changes. If you don’t see answers here, then send an email so we can update this site.

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Using JPay you can now use email to contact an inmate.

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