Keeping in Touch

January 5, 2015

Keeping in Touch

Many of you have expressed an interest in staying in touch with me while I am serving my sentence at Taft Prison Camp which will begin on January 13, 2015. For most people, snail mail is probably the best option! So when you have time, send me a card or letter. They say letter writing is a long, lost art and here’s your chance to brush up! To send me mail, please address it to:

DAVID APPLEGATE 63423-112
TAFT CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
P.O. BOX 7001
TAFT, CA 93268

I will do my best to answer as soon as possible! Also, if you write me, please do not enclose any actual stamps. The Bureau of Prisons does not allow stamps to be sent to inmates.

Please do not send me any packages as inmates are not able to receive packages directly from individuals. You CAN send me books via a third party like Amazon. I will post a separate entry on the process for doing that if you are interested.

You can also sign up to send me electronic messages through JPay (https://jpay.com/). However, the reality is that there are only two JPay terminals at Taft for almost 600 inmates. I have been told that inmates are asked to keep their JPay sessions to 20 minutes once per day. That is not very much time! Please do feel free to sign up though to send me “email” but please don’t be hurt if I am not able to respond to your email in a timely manner or if my response is short. The process for signing up is pretty straightforward. It will probably take a week or so for my name and number to be in the system. At that point, you will be able to enter California and my number (63423-112) into the search tool and I should come up. So wait until at least January 20 before registering to send me email. Once you are registered, the most important thing to remember is to purchase and send me at least one “stamp” when you send me an email. The 17¢/hour I will be earning at my prison job just won’t go that far! :) The process for sending email can be found at: http://jpay.com/PEMessages.aspx. It looks like you can even attach a photo when you send an email! So be sure and do that when you send me a message - it will be the next best thing to Facebook!

Of course, I can also have visitors. Visits to inmates at Taft work on a point system. Each inmate receives 20 points per month. Each Saturday visit (whether it’s one or five people) costs 8 points, each Sunday visit costs 6 points and each Friday visit costs 4 points. There are no visits Monday-Thursday. If you would like to visit, please send me your home address, email address and phone number. Once I am at Taft, I will provide them with a list of potential visitors and you will be sent an application including permission to do a background check.

As always, I greatly appreciate your love and support! The 13th is approaching fast. One day at a time!