Pinellas County Jail

When I started doing research on county jails four years ago Pinellas County Jail was one of the first jails that I had the opportunity of interviewing inmates about. I learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in the jail - ex-inmates are always very candid about their experiences which is great for those of us who want to know what life is really like in the Pinellas County Jail.

Going to jail is never fun - you need to learn how to respect inmates around you and you most likely won't have any problems. Inmates are going to get angry and loud when they're playing cards and you just need to know how to let them be without getting them upset with you.

Your relationship with other inmates is important because it can make the time go either very fast or very slow.

Obviously you want to find out how much time off for good behavior you can get. Inmates report that the standard is one day off for every 2 day served. That's not too bad - you basically get a 30% discount on your sentence for just getting in trouble.

In fact, losing good time is very difficult. Usually you have to have a very serious violation for the jail to take away your good time. The judge can also choose to revoke it, but that's not very common.

The calls cost $2.50 for 20 minutes. Actually, these seem like more reasonable prices than you might expect at other local jails across the US. Keep in mind that your calls are always recorded and that you have to call collect (you can't get phone cards).

Inmates are allowed visitors 1 time per day, up to 3 days per week. The visitations now mostly consist of watching each other on a video monitor. Most inmates don't like this - they would prefer to meet people face to face. The jail contends that this creates issues with contraband making its way into the jail.