Address:
11705 Alameda Street
Lynwood, CA 90262
Phone:
213-473-6100
The Century Regional Detention Facility is currently NOT providing secure electronic messaging for their inmates. For questions regarding why they are not, call the jail at 213-473-6100.
Jail email services that inmates use is not directly connected to the internet like normal email, but instead each correspondence is first intercepted by the jail's servers. This gives the staff an opportunity to review the messages before delivering them to both inmates and the people that the inmates are communicating with.
Electronic messages received by the inmates are read either on kiosks within the inmate's unit, or or on tablets provided by the third party service that oversees the program.
Allowing inmates access to email has many upsides:
For a list of Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about inmate emailing and texting, scroll down for more information about it or call the jail at 213-473-6100.
Hopefully soon the Century Regional Detention Facility will provide eleectyronic messaging for inmates in their care.
No.
As of January 2023, LA County Jails do not yet contract with a service that allows email or messaging services.
A growing number of jails now offer email services to inmates and their families.
Anything you or your inmate writes in an email service is put through a filtering program that looks for certain words related to criminal and/or gang activities. There have been multiple cases in which emails between inmates and their friends or loved ones have been used as evidence in criminal court cases to convict them or to file new charges.
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 Century Regional 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 Century Regional 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 213-473-6100 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.
Century Regional Detention Facility Inmates are allowed mail in envelopes and on postcards. They are also allowed to receive photos.
They are also allowed to receive books, magazine and newspapers directly from trusted publishers and businesses.
Mailing Address:
Inmate's Full Name & Booking Number
PO BOX 86164
Terminal Annex
Los Angeles, CA 90086-0164
To learn all the rules, policies and guidelines, and they are extensive, for sending anything in the mail to an inmate at any of the Los Angeles County Jails, check out our Inmate Mail Page.
To find out how to get access to a tablet for an inmate read the following:
1. First, Register or Sign In to GTL / Viapath Services.
2. In the top menu, click on 'Services', then on 'Inmate Devices & Content'.
3. All inmates have free access to the tablets to read their letters from family & friends, but there are many other services available to keep your inmate busy while incarcerated... such as Games, Books, Music and Movies. These other services come with fees that you can pay for when you pay for phone service.
To learn more about Tablet Rentals for inmates, including the cost, all the services available and everything else you need to know, check out our Tablet Rental Page.
Follow these instructions on how to open an account with GTL Connect Network (aka Viapath Technologies)
For full instructions on the Century Regional 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.
As of January 2023, LA County Jails do not yet contract with a service that allows email or messaging services. For the time being the only communication with inmates by US Mail, By Phone or by Visiting them at the facility.
For more information on how jails across America are using third-party email services to allow communication between inmates and their loved ones, check out our Inmate Email page.
Follow these instructions to register, schedule and then visit an inmate using GTL.
Inmate Visitation times in Century Regional Detention Facility vary based on many considerations.
After you select your inmate, you will be given the option of available time slots.
DAY | TIME |
SUNDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
MONDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
TUESDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
WEDNESDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
THURSDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
FRIDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
SATURDAY | 8:00AM - 9:00PM |
For all the information you need to know regarding scheduling, times, cost, rules, tips and guidelines of inmate visits at the Century Regional Detention Facility, check out our Visit Inmate Page.
There are two ways to deposit money in an inmate's account in the Los Angeles County Jail system:
1. Mailing a Payment - $200 maximum
Mailing Address:
Inmate's Full Name & Booking Number
PO BOX 86164
Terminal Annex
Los Angeles, CA 90086-0164
2. Dropping off a payment - $200 maximum
When dropping off an inmate's money in person, the Century Regional Detention Facility will only accept:
Locations to drop off inmate money:
Inmate Reception Center
450 Bauchet Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
or
Century Regional Detention Facility
11705 S. Alameda Street
Lynwood, CA 90262
For complete information and guidelines for sending an inmate money including: the maximum you can send, what form the payment has to be, the maximum an inmate can have in their account and more, check out our Inmate Money page.
To send a commissary carepack (food, snacks and goods) directly to an inmate in Century Regional Detention Facility follow these steps:
For all information, tips and available items for shipping Commissary packages to an inmate in Century Regional Detention Facility check out our Commissary Instructions Page for Los Angeles County.