What Is Harassment by an Inmate and How to Stop It?

If you want to know how to stop harassment from an inmate, the short answer is that you have several tools working at once: you can block the inmate’s calls and mail directly through the facility, file a formal complaint that triggers internal discipline, report threats to police as a potential new crime, and ask a court for a protection order that follows the person after release. None of these require the inmate’s cooperation, and most can be started today.

Federal regulations treat stalking, threats, and persistent unwanted contact as prohibited acts that carry real sanctions, including months in disciplinary segregation and forfeiture of good conduct time that would have shortened the inmate’s sentence.¹ Victims of federal crimes also have a statutory right to be reasonably protected from the person who committed the offense against them.²

Gather the Details That Make a Report Actionable

Before you contact anyone, pull together the facts investigators and clerks will ask for. A specific, documented complaint moves faster than a general one.

The inmate’s full legal name and identification number. State inmates have a DOC number; federal inmates have a BOP register number. A victim services coordinator can look up the number if you have the name and facility.
The exact facility where the inmate is housed. The BOP website has a directory for federal institutions.
A written log of every unwanted contact: date, time, channel (call, letter, message, third party), and a short description of what was said or sent.
The physical evidence itself. Keep every letter and envelope, save voicemails, print electronic messages, and screenshot social media contact. For phone calls, note the number that showed on your caller ID so staff can match it against the prison’s call logs.

Do not discard anything, even letters that read as harmless. The offense is often the pattern of contact after the inmate has been told to stop, and each piece of correspondence proves that pattern.

Block the Inmate’s Phone Calls

The federal prison phone system lets you block an inmate’s calls yourself. When a call comes in, a voice prompt gives you the option to deny and block further calls from that inmate’s line.³ Once you place the block through the automated system, it stays in effect until you submit a written request to reinstate the number, which has to include a recent phone bill to verify your identity.

If you don’t want to wait for the next call, call the facility directly. Staff can place a temporary suspension of up to 20 calendar days on the inmate’s ability to call your number while you submit the written request to make the block permanent.³ Victims registered with the BOP’s Victim/Witness Notification System get an automatic block: their phone numbers are blocked at any facility where the inmate is housed, without a separate request.

Request a Mail and Messaging Block

Ask the facility to stop forwarding mail from the inmate to you. The warden has authority to establish correspondence procedures and can restrict an inmate’s mail privileges as part of discipline or to protect recipients.⁴ Put the request in writing, include the inmate’s name and register number, and address it to the facility’s mail administrator or victim services coordinator.

Many federal facilities also run a monitored electronic messaging system called TRULINCS. Both inmates and their outside contacts consent to monitoring and retention of all messages as a condition of using it, and the facility can restrict or revoke an inmate’s messaging access when the system is misused.⁵ If you’ve been receiving messages through TRULINCS, ask the coordinator to remove you from the inmate’s approved contact list.

File a Formal Complaint With the Facility

A complaint to the institution triggers an internal investigation and starts the disciplinary process. For federal prisons, the BOP’s victim resources page lists Victim-Witness Coordinators who handle exactly this situation.⁶ For state facilities, go through your state department of corrections website.⁷ State clearly in writing that you are being harassed by a named inmate, attach your contact log and copies of the evidence, and keep the originals.

If the facility doesn’t resolve the problem, escalate. For federal prisons, file next with the BOP regional office, then with BOP Headquarters or the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General.⁷ For state prisons, take it to the state department of corrections and then the governor’s office.

One scope note worth keeping in mind: the Prison Rape Elimination Act covers sexual abuse and sexual harassment inside correctional facilities, but it does not reach non-sexual harassment of outside victims.⁸ Threatening letters, intimidating calls, and manipulation through third parties fall under the facility’s general discipline code and the federal criminal statutes below, not PREA.

Report Threats and Stalking to Police

If the contact includes threats of violence or amounts to stalking, file a report with your local law enforcement agency as well. Federal criminal law reaches harassment that uses mail or any electronic communication service. Under the federal stalking statute, using those channels to engage in a course of conduct that places someone in reasonable fear of serious bodily injury, or that causes or would reasonably cause substantial emotional distress, is a federal crime carrying additional imprisonment.⁹ A conviction stacks a new sentence on top of the one the inmate is already serving.

The police report also strengthens your internal complaint. It documents the situation outside the prison system and signals to the facility that outside investigators are involved.

Get a Civil Protection Order

Being incarcerated does not exempt someone from a court order. You can obtain a civil protection order or restraining order against an inmate, and once it’s in place a violation becomes its own enforceable offense.

Service on an inmate typically runs through the facility’s internal legal processing staff. You send the court documents to the institution, usually addressed to a designated litigation coordinator, along with a proof-of-service form and a self-addressed stamped envelope. Facility staff serve the inmate and return the completed proof of service, which you file with the court to make the order enforceable. The inmate’s full name and identification number are needed to make sure the documents reach the right person.

Filing fees for civil harassment protection orders vary by jurisdiction, from no cost in some courts to several hundred dollars in others. Many jurisdictions waive fees for victims of domestic violence or stalking. Ask the courthouse clerk about fee waivers before paying.

What the Facility Can Do to the Inmate

Knowing what the system can impose helps you decide where to push. Federal prohibited acts are sorted into four severity levels, and each level has a defined set of available sanctions.¹⁰ Stalking, threats of bodily harm, and sexual threats are high-severity offenses. Abusive or obscene language is a listed prohibited act at a lower level.¹

At the high-severity level, an inmate found guilty faces:

Up to six months in disciplinary segregation.
Loss of up to 50% of available good conduct time or 60 days, whichever is less. For offenses falling under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, the loss is mandatory, at least 27 days per offense, and directly extends the time the inmate actually serves.¹¹
Forfeiture of up to 27 days of First Step Act time credits per offense, credits that would otherwise have moved the inmate toward early release or halfway-house placement.
Loss of phone, commissary, visitation, recreation, and electronic messaging privileges.
Rescission or retardation of a scheduled parole date. Research on parole decisions shows institutional misbehavior is a significant factor in whether release is granted.¹²

These sanctions compound. An inmate who loses phone privileges can’t call you. One who loses good conduct time stays in longer. One who draws a parole retardation has a harder path to release.

Stay Informed and Protected for the Release Date

Harassment is unsettling partly because of what it signals about the day the inmate gets out. Two tools matter here: notification registration and a no-contact condition on supervised release.

Register for Notifications

The BOP operates a Victim/Witness Notification System that alerts registered victims to the inmate’s release date, transfer to a community halfway house, escape, parole hearings, furloughs, and death.⁶ Escape notifications go out by phone the same day, and parole hearing notifications are mailed 30 days in advance so you have time to submit a statement or request to attend.¹³

To register, contact the U.S. Attorney’s office in the district where the prosecution occurred; a request sent to the BOP directly will be referred to that office for approval.¹³ The VNS call center is 1-866-365-4968, and the online portal is at notify.USDOJ.gov. For state inmates, many states participate in VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday), which provides custody status updates by phone, email, or text.

Ask for a No-Contact Condition on Supervised Release

When a federal inmate finishes a sentence and enters supervised release, the court can order no contact with you. Federal law allows judges to require that a person on supervised release refrain from associating unnecessarily with specified persons, and probation officers regularly recommend victim-specific no-contact conditions.¹⁴ A typical order prohibits communicating or otherwise interacting with the named victim, directly or through someone else, without the probation officer’s permission. Violating that condition can send the person back to prison.

If you were the victim in the underlying case and the release date is approaching, contact the U.S. Attorney’s office or the assigned probation officer and specifically request a no-contact condition. This is where many victims lose ground: they assume the system will handle it, but an explicit request to the probation officer carries real weight in what the officer recommends to the judge.

1
eCFR. 28 CFR Part 541 – Inmate Discipline and Special Housing Units
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3771 – Crime Victims Rights
3
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement P5264.08 – Inmate Telephone Regulations
4
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 5265.14 – Correspondence
5
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement P5265.13 – Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System (TRULINCS) – Electronic Messaging
6
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Resources For Victims and Witnesses
7
USAGov. File a Complaint About a State or Federal Prison
8
Bureau of Justice Assistance. Prison Rape Elimination Act Overview
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2261A – Stalking
10
eCFR. 28 CFR 541.3 – Prohibited Acts and Available Sanctions
11
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 5270.09 – Inmate Discipline Program
12
United States Courts. What Factors Affect Parole – A Review of Empirical Research
13
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 1490.06 – Victim and Witness Notification
14
United States Courts. Chapter 3 – Association and Contact Restrictions (Probation and Supervised Release Conditions)