How I donate to incarcerated individuals for the holidays:
I browse the website writeaprisoner.com to search through profiles of people who are currently incarcerated throughout the country. You can filter your search by location, race, age, sex, etc. I utilize this feature because I typically donate to individuals who are marginalized by race, gender, sexuality, etc.
You can also view each person’s charges if you have preferences against donating to folks incarcerated for specific offenses like sexual predation.
I check their profile for their institutional e-mail which should be called “JPay.” Click the JPay hyperlink on their profile to be directed to this page which will instruct you on how to write letters and send money through the service.
Unfortunately, not every detention center on this site provides access to this service, but most of them do. I do not have experience with other institutional e-mails, but I’m sure most of them work in the same way as JPay.
From there, simply create a JPay account or login if you already have one. They pretty much walk you through how to send money and e-mails to a person of your choosing using their Inmate ID# which is listed on their profile under the “Contact” → “By Mail”” section.
There are several other ways to put money on someone’s books, this is just a method that has been proven to work for me personally. Please let me know if you are confused about anything or run into any problems.
