Support Our Mission

Prisonpedia is a free reference on the United States federal criminal justice system. The pages here cover statutes, court procedure, sentencing, Bureau of Prisons facilities, and the people who have moved through that system. The goal is plain. Put accurate, sourced information in one place so the people who need it can find it fast.

Most readers arrive at a hard moment. Someone is facing charges. A family member just got a surrender date. A reporter is checking a fact on deadline. A student is trying to understand how a case actually moved from indictment to sentencing. Those readers do not need opinion. They need facts they can trust and a citation they can follow.

This page explains what the project is for and how you can help keep it useful.

What Prisonpedia is

Prisonpedia documents the federal system as it works on paper and in practice. Articles fall into a few groups. Profiles cover individuals with federal cases of public record. Facility pages describe specific prisons and camps. Topic pages explain legal mechanics like supervised release, restitution, the Residential Drug Abuse Program, and post-conviction remedies.

Every factual claim is meant to carry a citation. We lean on primary sources first. Department of Justice press releases, court filings, the U.S. Code, Bureau of Prisons records, and the Federal Register. Established news reporting fills in the rest. Where a source is weak or a fact cannot be confirmed, the page says so or leaves it out.

The reference is free to read. There is no paywall and no account required to use it.

Why it exists

Reliable information about federal cases is scattered. Court records sit behind PACER fees. News coverage moves on after sentencing. Official sources use language that is hard to parse if you have never read a judgment before. Prisonpedia pulls those threads together and writes them in clear English.

The work matters most to people who are not lawyers. A defendant trying to understand a plea agreement. A spouse trying to learn what a facility designation means for visits. Someone preparing for self-surrender who has no idea what to pack or expect. Good information lowers the fear that comes with not knowing.

How you can help

You do not need a law degree to improve this resource. Most contributions come from people who simply know one thing well and write it down accurately.

Add what you know

If you have direct experience with a facility, a program, or a process, that knowledge is valuable. Notes from inside a specific prison. The real steps in a reentry process. How commissary or phone access actually works day to day. Write what you saw, keep it factual, and point to a source where one exists.

Improve existing pages

Articles go stale. A facility changes its visiting hours. A statute gets amended. A release date passes. If you spot something out of date or wrong, fix it and add a citation. Small corrections add up.

Add sources

A claim without a source is a claim we cannot stand behind. If you find a page making a statement that has no citation, look for a primary or reputable secondary source and attach it. Strong sourcing is what separates a reference from a rumor.

Share the resource

The simplest help costs nothing. If a Prisonpedia page answered a question for you, pass it to the next person who needs it. Link to it from a forum thread where someone is asking. Send it to a family member who is searching for the same answers you were. Reach matters because the people this serves often do not know the resource exists.

Editorial standards

Contributions are held to the same rules as the rest of the site. State legal outcomes precisely. Someone was charged, pleaded guilty, was acquitted, or was sentenced. Do not guess at motive or character. Do not sensationalize. For any claim that could harm a living person's reputation, cite two or more independent sources.

We do not publish unsourced gossip, anonymous tips presented as fact, or material lifted from other encyclopedias. The point is to be the page a careful reader can rely on, not the loudest one.

Contact and corrections

If you find an error and are not able to edit it yourself, flag it. Send the page name, the specific claim, and a source that shows the correct fact, either through the article's talk page or by email to [email protected]. Corrections backed by a citation get priority. Accuracy is the whole product here, so a good correction is one of the most useful things you can send.