Address:
5555 Giant Highway
Richmond, CA 94806
Phone:
510-262-4200
When you send mail to an inmate in West County Detention Facility (see mailing address below), it gets sent to a third party service that takes the content and scans it, then forwarded to the jail to be printed out and given to the inmate.
Inmate Name – Booking Number
West County Detention Facility - 1118
PO Box 96777
Las Vegas, NV 89193
West County Detention Facility is using this service because all too often, inmates were receiving letters soaked in illegal liquid drugs.
The service, called Pigeonly, accepts non-privileged (legal) mail.
Pigeonly will also process the following non-privileged (personal) mail:
As an additional service Pigeonly offers a service where you don't even have to use the USPS to send the inmate mail, but can send your letters and photos directly from your phone or computer. There are several plans; monthly and annual, that come with a fee, but save you the trouble of dealing with writing and mailing letters the old school way.
Almost all jails and prisons have adopted a messaging system which allows inmates to communicate with their friends and family using an electronic messaging system. It’s neither email nor text, it’s something in between.
The inmate and their contacts do not use their regular email accounts or phone numbers, but account numbers that are set up with the company providing the service.
All communication goes through them. Think of them as a middleman.
Once a contact of the inmate is approved, like the approval process a visitor goes through, an account is set up, using a credit or debit card to fund the account.
To start, the inmate’s contact can send a message that has a limit of so many characters, usually about one page of text.
The message is then reviewed by a computer that scans the message for certain keywords or phrases that are not allowed, almost like a censoring service. If the machine scanner finds problems with the message it sends the message to the West County Detention Facility staff to review, and if they find no issues, will then forward it to the inmate’s account so that they can read it.
If there are problems with the message, it is possible the message will not be sent. The sender will be notified of the decision and will not get a refund.
Once the inmate receives the message, should the account holder have funded the account allowing replies, the inmate can respond with a similar length message.
The cost to use the electronic messaging service, which is like texting or emailing, costs between $0.50 and $1.00 per page; a page being about 500 characters.
Photos can be sent by the inmate’s contact that is not incarcerated, but not by the inmate due to security concerns. There is an extra cost, usually about $0.50 for each photo attached.
The photos must go through a security screening where nudity, violence and other things are checked before the photo can be delivered. If the photo is rejected, the sender will be notified, but no refund will be given.
The inmate does not have the ability to print out the photos that make it past the screening, but the photos will stay in their account so that they can view them at their leisure.
No. Because this is a closed system, the inmate has no access to the internet, thus the inmate will have no access to any links that you send them.
Yes, just as you can send text and photos, you can send a video message, or if not a message, then a video of your children or yourself. Every company has a limit on the length of the video, usually no more than one minute, and at a cost of approximately $2.00 to $3.00 per video.
The video will first be screened for any nudity, excessive vulgarity, violence, etc. If it is rejected on any of the grounds the sender will not be given a refund.
As with the policy of photos, the inmate cannot reciprocate. They cannot send videos of themselves or anything in jail.
The jails that contract with the electronic messaging service is given a certain number of kiosks within each unit for inmate use. Inmates can log on as they might with a public computer terminal.
In addition to the public terminal kiosks, inmates are given (or can rent) access to individual tablets like a bulky, almost indestructible ipad. These allow an inmate to use them to access your messages, photos and videos in a more private manner.
Should the inmate damage the tablet, they will be responsible for replacing it. The money will be deducted from their commissary account.
The electronic messaging system used by West County Detention Facility, if there is one, can be found at the top of this page. If there is no information about the ability to text or email with an inmate, it is possible that the facility has recently changed companies or does not have this service available. Call 510-262-4200 to confirm.
This is a list of all the companies in the United States that work with jails and prisons, providing text and email messaging between inmates and their friends and families:
Access Corrections
CIDNET
City Tele Coin
Correct Pay
Corrlinks
Ctel
Edevo
Express Account
Gettingout
GTL
Homewav
IC Solutions
Inmate Canteen
Inmate Sales
JailATM
J Pay
NCIC
Paytel
Pigeonly
Prodigy Sales
Reliance
Securus
Smart Communications
TBE
Visitel
You fund the messaging service with credit and debit cards. All of them take Visa and MasterCard, most also take Discover, and just some take America Express.
There is no limit to the amount of texting and email that an inmate can have with their family and friends.
If an inmate has their own tablet, then they can text any time of the day or night, however if the must use the wall mounted kiosk terminal in their unit, they are limited to using it only during the hours they are allowed off their bunks; usually 7:00AM to 10:00PM, excluding meals, head counts and shift changes.
No, inmates are not allowed to communicate with each other, nor with inmates in other institutions. There is always a way to get around it, for example if one of the inmates has access to a phone with an internet connection, but this would be the only way.
Option 1 - Dropping Money at the Jail
Bring money to the jail in person.
Either the jail personnel will process the Inmate Account payment or you will use a self-serve kiosk in the lobby that accepts cash, debit or Visa and MC credit cards.
Option 2 - Mail the Inmate Deposit to the Jail
Mailing a deposit takes more time to process than the other methods but can be done if you live too far away to bring it in person.
Never send cash. Always send a Money Order from the US Post Office.
Make the Money Order out to the inmate and put their Inmate ID# in memo section of the Money Order.
Mail to the West County Detention Facility:
5555 Giant Highway
Richmond, CA 94806
For complete information on depositing money at the West County Detention Facility, including limits, where to drop or mail them and anything else, check out our Inmate Money page.
Pigeonly allows you to physically or digitally send an inmate:
Pigeonly offers a service where you don't even have to use the USPS to send the inmate mail, but can send your letters and photos directly from your phone or computer. There are several plans; monthly and annual, that come with a fee, but save you the trouble of dealing with writing and mailing letters the old school way.
will either print them out for your inmate or put them on a terminal in their unit to see and read them.
For complete information on using pigeonly to mail letters, email letters, cards, photos, articles, as well as find out pricing plans, check out our Inmate Email page or Inmate Mail page.
Postcards
The West County Detention Facility allows inmates to receive pre-metered postcards like the type purchased from the post office. They may also allow certain photo postcards as long as they have not been tampered with or contain images that may be considered to be obscene or violent in nature.
Envelopes
The West County Detention Facility also allows envelopes to be mailed to inmates.
Postcards and envelopes MUST be mailed to the following address:
Inmate Name – Booking Number
West County Detention Facility - 1118
PO Box 96777
Las Vegas, NV 89193
Legal Mail
Send all legal Mail to this Address:
Inmate Name – Booking Number
West County Detention Facility
5555 Giant Highway
Richmond, CA 94806
Newspapers
Local or national newspapers may also be mailed to the inmate as long as they are mailed directly from the newspaper publisher.
Magazines
News, special interest or sports magazines may also be mailed to an inmate as long as they are shipped directly from the publisher. Any magazines that contain profanity, weapons, pornography or other content that is adult in nature will be confiscated by the jail staff and will NOT be delivered to the inmate.
Books
The West County Detention Facility allows books to be mailed directly to the jail from a reputable source such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million. You can order them directly from your computer and have them shipped to the inmate at the address below.
Books must NOT contain images or content that are considered excessively violent, pornographic or obscene. Any book that does not meet the West County Detention Facility standards will be disposed of. No more than three books may be shipped at any one time.
Hard cover books will not be accepted by the jail due to their potential to be used as a weapon.
All newspapers, magazines and books are to be shipped to:
Inmate Name – Booking Number
West County Detention Facility
5555 Giant Highway
Richmond, CA 94806
Follow these instructions on how to open an account with GTL Connect Network (aka Viapath Technologies)
For full instructions on the West County Detention Facility Inmate Phone System, what the costs are, how it works, and tips and guidelines on rules, regulations and saving money on calls, check out our Inmate Phones Page.
To send a commissary carepack (food, snacks and goods) directly to an inmate in West County Detention Facility follow these steps:
For all information, tips and available items for shipping Commissary packages to an inmate in West County Detention Facility check out our Commissary Instructions Page for Contra Costa County.
To send commissary money to an inmate in West County Detention Facility follow these steps:
For all information on how to Send Money to an inmate's account check out our full money and commissary guide for West County Detention Facility.
