FCI Yazoo City Low (BOP): Visits, Mail, Money & CorrLinks Guide
FCI Yazoo City Low is a low-security federal men's prison in Yazoo City, Yazoo County, Mississippi, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) as part of the Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) Yazoo City. The complex is one of the larger BOP campuses in the Southeast, comprising four separate facilities on a shared property: FCI Yazoo City Low, FCI Yazoo City Medium, the United States Penitentiary (USP) Yazoo City, and a Federal Prison Camp (FPC). Each facility operates independently with its own warden, staff, housing, and specific mailing arrangements. FCI Yazoo City Low holds men convicted of federal offenses at the low-security classification level, which typically means dormitory-style housing, double-fenced perimeters, structured work assignments through UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries), and significant education and reentry programming under the First Step Act framework. Because it is a federal facility, all family-facing rules follow BOP national policy rather than Mississippi state rules, and this guide covers what families need to know about visitation, mail, deposits, phone, and CorrLinks email.
About FCI Yazoo City Low and the four-facility complex
The Yazoo City Federal Correctional Complex sits north of Jackson, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. FCC Yazoo City is one of the larger BOP complexes nationally, with four distinct facilities operating on a shared campus: FCI Yazoo City Low (low-security men), FCI Yazoo City Medium (medium-security men), USP Yazoo City (high-security men in a penitentiary), and a Federal Prison Camp (minimum-security men). Each facility has its own warden, its own housing, its own visiting area, and its own PO Box for inmate mail — a family member looking for someone at the Yazoo City complex needs to know which specific facility their loved one is at, since mail sent to the wrong PO Box is delayed or returned.
Low-security BOP institutions like FCI Yazoo City Low are the second-lowest security level in the federal system (above minimum-security camps but below medium and high/USP). Housing is generally dormitory-style rather than celled, the perimeter is double-fenced with electronic detection but without gun towers, and inmates have significant program participation obligations including work assignments through UNICOR or operational functions, education, and evidence-based recidivism-reduction programming that qualifies for First Step Act (FSA) Earned Time Credits. Population at the Low typically includes men serving mid-range federal sentences across a range of offense categories.
Every person in BOP custody has a unique 8-digit federal register number that follows them across the entire system. That register number, along with the full legal name used at conviction, is required on every letter, deposit, visit registration, and CorrLinks message. The BOP Inmate Locator is the authoritative source for whether someone is currently at FCI Yazoo City Low or has been transferred, and it also confirms the specific facility designation among the four Yazoo City complex facilities. Our guide on how to find someone in jail or prison covers the search process more generally.
Visiting FCI Yazoo City Low
Visits at FCI Yazoo City Low are held on weekends and federal holidays during posted hours. Because weekends are heavily used, the facility may limit visits to either Saturday or Sunday based on the last name of the inmate under an alphabetical rotation system that spreads visitor volume across both days. Confirm your loved one's assigned visiting day, the specific current hours, and any operational restrictions on the BOP's Yazoo City Low page or by calling (662) 751-4800 before you travel — the Warden may restrict or cancel visits for safety and security reasons.
All visitors must be on the inmate's pre-approved visitor list, which is set up through Form BP-A0629 (Visitor Information Form): the inmate requests the form, mails it to you, and you return the completed form to the facility for a background check that typically takes two to four weeks. Approval is not automatic. Bring a valid government-issued photo ID and dress within BOP visiting-room rules (no khaki that resembles inmate uniform, no denim on certain days, no revealing clothing, no open-toed shoes for adults). Visitors can bring only a small amount of cash for vending machines and must leave phones and most personal items in the car.
How to send money to an FCI Yazoo City Low inmate: BOP National Lockbox
Money for a BOP inmate's commissary and phone account goes through the BOP National Lockbox in Des Moines, Iowa — not to FCI Yazoo City Low directly. The BOP's own website makes this explicit: Do NOT send money to an inmate using this facility's address. Deposits routed to the prison directly will be returned or lost.
You have three practical options for the National Lockbox: MoneyGram ExpressPayment (receive code 7932, city "FBOP"); Western Union Quick Collect (city "FBOP," state "DC"); or a postal money order mailed to Federal Bureau of Prisons, Inmate Name and 8-digit Register Number, PO Box 474701, Des Moines, IA 50947-0001. MoneyGram and Western Union usually post to the inmate's account within a few hours; mailed money orders take significantly longer to process but carry no per-transaction fee. Deposits stay with the inmate across BOP transfers, so you do not need to re-route funds when he moves. Our overview of how to send money to an inmate compares options in detail.
Mail to an FCI Yazoo City Low inmate
Personal mail for FCI Yazoo City Low inmates goes to Inmate Name and 8-digit Register Number, FCI Yazoo City Low, PO Box 5000, Yazoo City, MS 39194. FCI Yazoo City Medium, USP Yazoo City, and the Federal Prison Camp use different PO Boxes — verify the current routing on the BOP's Yazoo City page if you are unsure which specific facility your loved one is at. Include your full return address; letters without one are typically rejected.
Follow BOP national prohibited-items rules: no cash, no stamps, no glitter or glue, no Polaroids (photocopied or printed photos are fine), no stickers, and no perfumed paper. Books and publications generally must come directly from the publisher or an approved online retailer. Legal mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence. Our how to send mail to an inmate covers the details.
CorrLinks email, phone calls through ViaPath, and First Step Act programming
The BOP offers CorrLinks email (the TRULINCS system) at FCI Yazoo City Low. The inmate initiates a CorrLinks invitation from his end, you register at corrlinks.com, and once approved you can exchange secure text-only messages back and forth for a small per-message fee paid by the inmate. CorrLinks is not real-time chat — messages are subject to security screening and typically deliver within an hour or so — but it is meaningfully faster than USPS and has largely replaced letter-writing for many federal families.
Phone service is provided through ViaPath (formerly GTL) at BOP-set per-minute rates that are significantly lower than typical county-jail rates. Register your phone number on the inmate's approved list, and he calls you from his allotted monthly minutes. First Step Act (FSA) Earned Time Credits are an important part of federal sentence planning today: eligible BOP inmates can earn credits toward halfway-house or home-confinement placement by completing evidence-based recidivism-reduction programs. FCI Yazoo City Low has FSA-eligible programming, and understanding your loved one's FSA status and completion pace is meaningful support — ask him for his Insight report and track his projected release under FSA. Our guide to calling an inmate covers phone setup and the Federal Bureau of Prisons overview covers FSA basics.
Legal mail, emergencies, and avoiding scams
Legal or privileged mail is opened only in the inmate's presence when properly marked. For urgent family emergencies such as a death, serious illness, or birth, call FCI Yazoo City Low at (662) 751-4800 and ask the chaplain's office to relay the message. If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside, contact the facility through the chain of command, use the BOP's administrative-remedy process (starting with a BP-8 informal resolution), and keep a written record. External escalation paths include the BOP's Southeast Regional Office and the DOJ Office of the Inspector General.
Be cautious about paying third-party sites — the BOP Inmate Locator, CorrLinks, and the National Lockbox in Des Moines are the authoritative channels. Paying an unfamiliar site to "locate" a federal inmate or "send money faster" is a common way families lose money for something the system provides free or through named vendors.
Yazoo City is a complex, not a single prison
Several federal institutions share the Yazoo City site, and getting the wrong one is the most common mistake families make here. This record is the low-security FCI. The same complex also has a satellite camp and a Federal Satellite Low, each of which takes mail addressed differently. The Bureau publishes distinct addressing formats for the main institution, for the satellite camp and for the Federal Satellite Low — using the wrong one gets mail returned rather than forwarded.
The services provided here are a low-security federal correctional institution, a satellite camp and a Federal Satellite Low. That is a clinical remit rather than a custodial one — people are here because of a medical or behavioural health need, not because this is where they are held.
The components of the Yazoo City complex
Because this record is not itself a custody facility, the numbers worth knowing belong to the two that are. The most recent federal jail census, covering 2026, counted them separately:
- FCI Yazoo City Low — the low-security institution this page covers
- The satellite camp — minimum security, with its own mail addressing
- The Federal Satellite Low — again separately addressed
Each component takes mail addressed differently, and the Bureau publishes a distinct format for each. Use the inmate locator to confirm which component holds your family member before sending anything, and remember that funds never go to the institution — they go to the Bureau's processing centre in Des Moines, Iowa.
Those are census figures for a single reporting year and are now several years old, so treat them as the scale of each facility rather than a current count. Neither figure describes this record — this address is the hospital, and it holds no one on its own authority.
What records still exist for FCI Yazoo City Low
Closing a prison does not erase its statistical record. The department continues to publish pre-closure reports for this institution, including an institution page giving the visiting schedule and addressing rules for each component of the complex, published visiting regulations setting out days, hours and approval requirements and the Bureau-wide inmate locator.
These are worth knowing about if you are reconstructing a timeline — confirming when someone was held here, what the conditions and population were at the time, or supporting a claim that depends on how the institution was operating. They are statistical rather than individual, so they will not contain a named person's file; for that you need a records request to the department rather than a published report.
Who runs FCI Yazoo City Low
The institution sits in the Southern District of Mississippi, which is the federal court district that sentences most of the people held here. That total is the context for everything else here — a system of that size sets policy centrally and applies it uniformly, which is why the answer you get rarely changes depending on who you ask.
How to find someone in this department's custody
The department's official search tool is the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, at www.bop.gov/inmateloc. The federal locator covers everyone in Bureau custody nationwide and is the authority on which institution — and which part of a complex — someone is in. Search by name or by register number; the register number is far more reliable, because federal name matching is strict.
Your first steps if a loved one just arrived at FCI Yazoo City Low
If someone you love has just been designated to FCI Yazoo City Low, focus first on the essentials: write down their federal register number and confirm placement through the BOP Inmate Locator (double-check that the placement is at the Low specifically rather than the Medium, USP, or Camp), ask the inmate to send you a Form BP-A0629 for visitor approval, set up a CorrLinks account, register your phone number for calls, and fund an initial commissary deposit through MoneyGram, Western Union, or a mailed money order to the Des Moines lockbox. Confirm his weekend visiting-day assignment under any alphabetical rotation. As a projected release date approaches, our guides on life after prison, finding work after prison, and applying for SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF after release cover what comes next, including the transition to federal supervised release.
Working with the four-facility complex geography
Because FCC Yazoo City operates four separate BOP facilities on one campus, families sometimes confuse the specific facility their loved one is at. The BOP Inmate Locator shows the specific facility designation, and each of the four uses a distinct mailing address per the BOP's Yazoo City location page. Deposits (which all go to the National Lockbox in Des Moines regardless) don't need to distinguish among the four, but visits, mail, and CorrLinks routing are facility-specific. If a package or letter is returned as "unknown addressee," verify you used the right facility's PO Box and inmate register number.
Federal supervised release after Yazoo City Low
Most people completing a federal sentence at FCI Yazoo City Low enter federal supervised release rather than clean release with no ongoing oversight. Supervised release conditions are set by the sentencing judge and are administered by the US Probation Office in the district where the person will live post-release. Understanding the specific supervised-release conditions attached to your loved one's sentence (typical duration, reporting obligations, employment expectations, drug-testing requirements) helps the family prepare for the post-release period. If FSA Earned Time Credits qualify your loved one for extended halfway-house or home-confinement placement in the final portion of his sentence, that transition can be a meaningful bridge between institution and full community release — support the process by helping arrange housing, employment leads, and family stability before the halfway-house window opens.
