You don't have to
face this alone.
Someone you love is heading to a women's federal prison, or you are. The fear is real, and you are not the first to walk this road. Everything here is about the federal system, the one run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, because a federal case follows different rules than any state prison or county jail. Start wherever tonight finds you.
Free to read. Nothing for sale. Every fact traced to a primary source.We know your next step.
This road comes in stages, and each one carries its own particular fears and its own list of things nobody warned you about. Find the stage you're in right now. Read straight through, or skip ahead to whatever it is that's keeping you up tonight.
The Target Letter
You've been notified or you're under investigation. What a federal target letter means, the first moves to make, and how to steady yourself and your family.
Understand the letter →Pre-Trial
From federal charges to a plea or trial to sentencing day: a plain-language guide to the PSR, the guidelines, and how federal sentencing really works for women.
See what comes next →Getting Ready to Go Away
From designation to self-surrender: what to handle before you report to a women's federal prison, for you and the family walking beside you.
Prepare for day one →Reentry
Federal prison reentry for women, explained: the halfway house, home confinement, supervised release, and the practical, hopeful work of rebuilding.
Plan the road home →The pages people go straight to.
If you already know the one thing you came here for, it is probably on this list. Every one of these is a full guide, not a summary.
- Self-Surrender Day for Women, Step by Step (and What to Bring) Self-surrender to federal prison, walked through calmly for women: what the day looks like hour by hour, what to bring, what to leave home, and how to steady yourself and your family.
- What to Bring (and What Not to Bring) A verified packing guide for self-surrender: the very short list you actually carry in, why almost everything stays home, how commissary seeding works, and how to confirm the rules with your facility's handbook.
- Visitation Rules and Planning How to get on the visitor list, pre-approval timelines, what ID to bring, facility visit schedules, video visitation, and what to expect during a prison visit.
- RDAP and First Step Act Credits for Women: Eligibility and the Real Math RDAP and First Step Act credits can take real months off a federal sentence. Here is who qualifies, what the PATTERN score is, and how the credits actually apply.
- The Presentence Report and the Interview (PSI), Explained The presentence interview and the report it produces shape your sentence, where BOP sends you, and your years on supervised release. Here is how to prepare.
- How BOP Designation Works for Women (and How to Advocate for a Facility Near Home) You do not choose your prison, but you can advocate for one near home. How BOP designation and security scoring work for women, and how to make your case.
- Commissary and Money: How to Put Money on Her Books, and What It Really Costs How the federal prison commissary works, how to put money on her books, what phone and email cost, and how to correct the misinformation about all of it.
- Halfway House and Home Confinement: The Rules, and What to Expect How the halfway house (RRC) and home confinement work at the end of a federal sentence for women: who qualifies, the rules, the timing, and how to prepare.
Guides to the facilities themselves.
Every federal facility that houses women, verified against the Bureau's own live data, on one map. These are the ones people look up most.
- FPC Alderson Alderson, West Virginia
- FPC Bryan Bryan, Texas
- FMC Carswell Fort Worth, Texas
- FCI Aliceville Aliceville, Alabama
- FCI Hazelton (SFF) Bruceton Mills, West Virginia
- FCI Waseca Waseca, Minnesota
Written for the 2 a.m. search nobody wants to be making.
What is this website?
A free guide for women facing a federal sentence, and for the people who love them. Federal is the key word. This site is about the system run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons under federal law, the one that follows a target letter, a federal indictment, or a federal conviction. The rules, the facilities, and the process below are all specific to federal cases, run separately from any state prison, county jail, or state department of corrections. Most of what's out there assumes the person going in is a man, or it sits behind a paid consultation. So we built the thing we kept looking for: guides for every stage from the target letter to the first year home, pages on every facility where the BOP houses women with each one's current population from the Bureau's own reports, and facts sourced to BOP.gov, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, or the U.S. Code, cited right on the page.
Who is it for?
Women at any point on this road. The day the target letter lands, the first years back home, and everything in between. It's just as much for the people standing beside them, so if you are the spouse, the partner, a mother or a sister or a friend who is holding the whole household together while quietly coming apart yourself, then a lot of what follows was written with you in mind. You count here too. The pages ahead spend as much time on kids, health, money, and marriages as they do on security levels, because that is what actually keeps people up at night.
Organizations that will pick up the phone.
A few of the national organizations we point people to most often. Each one does real, verifiable work for women and families caught up in this system, and none of them will ever charge you to reach out.
A New Way of Life Reentry Project 
Essie Justice Group 
National Council for Incarcerated & Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls 
The Fortune Society 
White Collar Support Group (WCSG) 
Lioness: Justice Impacted Women's Alliance (JIWA) 
Operation Restoration 
Women's Prison Association (WPA) Answers to what people ask first.
Is this about federal prison, or state prison?
Federal prison only. This entire site is about the federal system, run nationally by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons under federal law and federal sentencing rules, which is a completely separate system from any state prison or county jail. If your case was charged by a state prosecutor in state court, the facilities, rules, and process here will not match what you are facing, and you should look for state-specific resources instead. If your case involves a federal target letter, a federal indictment, or a federal judge, you are in the right place.
What is a women's federal prison like?
Quieter and far more ordinary than television makes it look. Most women in the federal system are held at a minimum-security camp or a low-security facility, where the day is built around a work assignment, programs, and the phone calls and visits that keep you tied to home. The first couple of weeks are typically the hardest, the stretch where you are still learning where everything is and everyone is a stranger, and then, more gradually than you would expect, it settles into a routine. Orange Is the New Black is a TV show, and the "Camp Cupcake" headlines are a punchline; the real day-to-day looks much more ordinary than either one, and knowing what is really coming is the thing that takes the sharpest edge off the fear.
Who is this website for?
Women facing a federal sentence at any stage, from a target letter through reentry, plus the families standing beside them. A large share of the people who read this are supporters, the spouse or partner or mother or sister or friend who is quietly holding everything together at home, and it is written just as much for you. It is free, with no sales funnel and no credit card ever asked for.
Is this legal advice?
No. What you read here is general information, meant to help you understand the federal system and ask sharper questions, and it is not legal advice, so reading it creates no attorney-client relationship. Every federal case turns on its own facts. The decisions about yours belong with a federal criminal defense attorney, and anything touching your children or your custody arrangements belongs with a family-law attorney.