Phone & Video Calls in Mississippi (MDOC)

How Calls Work

MDOC’s phone service runs through Global Tel Link (now ViaPath), on the ConnectNetwork platform — Mississippi’s Site ID is 135. Calls go one direction only: the incarcerated person places them, and the prison phones cannot receive calls. Calls are usually limited to 15 minutes, and the person can only call numbers on their approved list, which is updated every six months from their date of admission. Calls to prepaid cell phones are not accepted.

Setting Up an Account and Costs

Family members set up an account to receive calls. ConnectNetwork offers two types:

• AdvancePay — a prepaid account a family member funds to receive the person’s calls
• PIN Debit — an account funded for the incarcerated person to call from

New accounts are set up at 1-877-650-4249 or on ConnectNetwork.com; the automated AdvancePay line is 1-800-483-8314. This is separate from depositing money to the person’s spending account, which goes through a different vendor — see Sending Money.

On cost: the last rate MDOC posted officially was 3.9 cents a minute, announced in 2018, and the department has not published a newer rate sheet. Federal caps adopted since then set ceilings below the old per-minute prices, so the working figure is whatever the ConnectNetwork account shows at funding time — confirm the current rate there before relying on a number.

Rules That End Calls

Personal calls may be monitored and recorded. The published exception is attorney calls: an attorney listed on the call list and marked as an attorney can be called from the unit without monitoring. Two rules carry consequences:

• Three-way calls and call forwarding are prohibited — connecting the person to another line is a violation
• Sharing an account or calling for another incarcerated person is not allowed

MDOC publishes no free-call allowance for its state facilities.

No Video Visits at State Prisons

MDOC’s state prisons have no video-visiting program — the official communications pages cover only phone and tablet messaging, and the ConnectNetwork listing for Mississippi shows only phone-account services. (A search may turn up a “midoc” video-visit site; that is Michigan, not Mississippi.) Facilities that hold out-of-state people, such as the CoreCivic prison at Tutwiler, do run tablet video visits under their own vendor for the states whose people they hold.

Tablets and Messaging

MDOC confirms a tablet-based messaging program run by ViaPath for people in state-operated and private facilities — text and messaging move through prison-issued tablets rather than the phone system. MDOC does not publish the per-message price, attachment rules, or credit system for its tablets, so the cost and mechanics are what the vendor’s account shows; all non-attorney messages are subject to monitoring.

Private and Regional Facilities

The phone system above is MDOC’s. The two privately operated prisons and the fifteen county-run regional facilities can differ — MDOC’s own guidance notes the regional facilities “are operated under local administrations and some may not use this company for inmate calls,” and the private East Mississippi facility routes blocked-number questions to a separate provider line. A family with someone in a regional or private facility confirms the phone vendor with that facility. People held at Tutwiler for Vermont, Montana, or Wyoming use that facility’s ViaPath tablet system — their home-state corrections department posts the specifics.

Verify Before Acting

For the general, nationwide overview of this topic, see the national guide: Staying in Touch.