From personal experience, it's taking my letters 2 weeks from the time they arrive, before my inmate gets her mail. If you don't have his CDC number, the inmate locater info number is as follow, which I copied and pasted from the CDC website.
To locate an offender within the jurisdiction of the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation you can call the
Identification Unit at (916) 445-6713. You must provide the full name
and the month, day and year of birth or CDC identification number for
the subject of your inquiry. This unit can only provide you with the
current location and CDC identification number for the offender. The
Identification Unit does not have and will not provide any future
release date information. This service is available only Monday through
Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. excluding state holidays.
Please
note that information for offenders recently admitted into or
transferred between state prisons may not be available for 7 business
days.
Letters are inspected for hidden contraband, then each are read for forbidden topics (escape plans, who to speak for buying contraband, etc...) When he gets sent to his permanent prison, you can send him packages via CDC approved vendors (at 300% inflated prices of how much they cost at your local Walmart), and he can receive paperback books from online retailers. A source I order my inmate's books are Amazon-com, who offers free shipping/handling for $25 purchase or more. When he contacts you, tell him its very important he doesn't get into any fights or arguments with inmates or guards, I mean be veeeery passive and cooperative. They're observing his behavior, which will decide whether he's sent to a minimum, or maximum state prison. In a minimum prison, you're allowed more stuff to include in your letters, such as blank papers. In maximum, it's stamps only, no blank papers, though some will allow up to 20 white envelopes. The fastest way to send $$ is via Jpay (dot) com, but I advice not sending anything under $100. Their flat-rate service fee is $2.95 for $1-$30; $5.95 for $30.01 to $100; $8.95 for $100.01 to $200; and $10.95 for $200.01 to $300. There's an additional $1 fee for a live operator. When you analyze the fee structure, the best value for your money is to send the maximum allowable before you cross to the next fee schedule, so send either $30, $100, $200, or $300. Otherwise, the percentage on the surcharge service fee climbs when you send below these amounts. For example, sending $30 = 9.8% service fee, but at $25 = 11.8% service fee. When you send below the $30-100-200-300 tier max, you're paying more in service fee, percentage wise. If you send MO (money order), I'd advice to send only USPS money order. All the private money orders are cheaper, until you read the fine print on the backs of the check and your tear-off receipt. They charge between $35 to $50 processing fee to refund your $$ if the money order is loss in the mail. When you send him stamps, write his CDC number and name on the back of the stamps and staple them to the letters. These effing mailroom processing guards are sometimes careless, and your stamps gets separated from your letters, then when he receives your letter, you mention "I've included a book of $8.40 in stamps" and there's nothing inside the envelope, and he's thinking you forgot to enclose it, when the effing guard either allowed it to fall off, or he probably stole it. I write to a female inmate, and I personally suspect the male guards in the mailroom are stealing stamps enclosed with the mail, then later trading them for sexual favors with the female inmates. I send 2 books of stamps, then she tells me there was only 1 book on her reply letter to me. So I started sending only 10 stamps at a time, and either gluing or taping the stamp's back against my letters. I figure if my suspicions are correct, maybe a BJ is worth a book of $8.40 in stamps inside women's prisons. BTW, tell him not to accept any favors from anyone, unless he knows the person personally before his incarceration. There's an underground male prostition market in some prisons. A gay inmate will offer free BJ or anal, then he later gets a visit from a gang leader, telling him he owes $$ for services rendered. They give him a shopping list to buy stuff from the Canteen, or otherwise, he gets beaten up. Both county jail and state prisons do not separate gay men from straights, which is creating an underground male prostitution market. At least this is what I've been told my an ex-roommate who served 5 years (judge sentence 10, but he does 50%) in state prison, and did 15 months in county jail, both for possession and sale of methamphetamine. Now that he's qualified for the 3-strikes law, he's decided to really quit selling drugs. He figures he can earn more on minimum wage, then what he'd earn inside prison while serving 25 years, or 12 ½ if you factor the 50% service rule. You say the judge imposed 80% !!! Ouch !!
Failure to plan (for the future), is planning for inevitable failure in life. Those who don't learn from past history, are condemned to repeat history.