Trousdale County Jail

Address:
315 East Main Street
Hartsville, TN 37074
Phone:
615-374-2114

Send an Email or Text to an Inmate in the Trousdale County Jail

Sending an Email, Text or Secure Electronic Message to an Inmate

The Trousdale County Jail provides a service which allows secure electronic messaging for their inmates.

The email service they use is called Paytel.

Paytel 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:

• It is less expensive than regular mail.
• It allows for faster turnaround of communication.
• It allows the jail to monitor inmate communication in real time.
• Because the jail receives a portion of the revenue, it brings the jail revenue they wouldn't have otherwise.
• It is an inmate privilege that they don't want to have taken away, and thus can be used as a way to control behavior.
• It keeps unwanted contraband from entering the facility in the physical mail.

For a list of Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about Paytel inmate emailing and texting, scroll down for more information about it or call the jail at 615-374-2114.

Paytel Secure Messaging with Inmates

inteleMESSAGE by Pay Tel is a service in which Trousdale County inmates can use tablets to send messages to any friend or family member that has set up an on-line prepaid or direct bill account with Pay Tel. 

How inteleMESSAGE Works

1. The Trousdale County Jail inmate must contact you first in order to activate messaging for your account.
2. Once an inmate has messaged you, you are then able to visit the Pay Tel website, log in, read and respond to his or her messages. 
3. When you log in and follow the inteleMESSAGE™ link, you will be asked if you want to accept messages from your Trousdale County inmate. If you accept, you will then be able to read any inmate message that has been sent to you.
4. An on-line prepaid or direct bill account is required to use messaging. 
5. You must visit the Pay Tel website, login to your account, and follow the inteleMESSAGE™ link in order to send or check for messages. You will not be notified of messages by any other method.
6. All messages are subject to monitoring and review and should never be used for privileged attorney-inmate communications.
7. If a message is rejected for any reason, the sender’s account will be automatically credited for the cost of the message.
8. Free messages which are rejected will not be refunded or restored.

Cost to send messages

1. The sender of the message is charged $.50 per message. Rates are subject to change.
2. For friends and family outside of a facility, this amount is deducted from the prepaid account balance or charged to your direct bill account.
3. For inmates, the amount is charged to the inmate and deducted from the inmate’s debit account.
4. There is no charge to read a message that was sent to you.

Paytel App Download

Check to see if Tablets are Available in Trousdale County Jail for rent to your inmate. Tablets can be used for phone calls, messaging, education, and entertainment.

Email with an Inmate in the Trousdale County Jail

Can inmates send and receive texts and emails?

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 Trousdale County Jail 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.

How much does it cost for an inmate to use a text or email service?

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.

Can inmates send and receive photos through their messaging system?

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. 

Can I send an inmate a link to a video to watch?

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.

Can I send the inmate a video?

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.

What device does an inmate use for texting and emailing?

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.

What is the inmate text and email system in Trousdale County Jail?

The electronic messaging system used by Trousdale County Jail, 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 615-374-2114 to confirm.

What are the companies that provide inmate electronic messaging services?

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

How do I fund the inmate’s messaging system?

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.

How often can an inmate text and email?

There is no limit to the amount of texting and email that an inmate can have with their family and friends.

Can inmates’ text any time of the day or night?

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.

Can inmates email other inmates in other jails or prisons?

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.