There are lots of ways to become active as a student. For example one can choose to present a paper about the subject in one of the classes. Or one can ask the teacher if he's willing to cover the subject during classes. The students of the class could decide together what to do and if perhaps some kind of action could be started (for example writing an article for a newspaper).

More ideas how to get involved you'll find here.

Pen pal ads on the pages of the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are being updated regularly. They only contain ads by inmates who are still looking for a pen friend.

The date of the last update is always shown at the end of the page.

Inmates who are looking for pen friends on the pages of the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are definitely interested in this.

Unfortunately the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty does not have any means to check which inmate has received how many responses to his ad already.

This depends on the person you write to. It can be without any problems at all, but there is also the possibility that it might stir up disturbance between the inmates.

In some states you're only allowed to send a certain amount of pages. Also lots of states don't allow stamps, cash, stickers, metal clamps or similar things in the envelopes. The amount of photos which can be sent might also be restricted.
So before contacting an inmate you should inform yourself which regulations the state has. Often these regulations are being changed very quickly so you should ask your pen friend about them.

To make sending the first letter easier for you, we've tried to write down the most important regulations by state on the entry page of each state's pen pal ads.

Unfortunaltey it's not possible to send e-mails to the inmates since they usually can't get into internet.

An alternative could be to go through www.l-mail.com , this way you can write your letter online and it's being printed and sent off in the US. When writing letters which are up to 3 pages long, this saves you time and money for postage.

A very fast alternative is the offer by www.jpay.com , if the prison you're writing to is part of this service. In this case you can send an e-mail to the inmate which is printed out in the mailroom of the prison and handed out to the inmate. Price is 44 US-cent per page. Normally the inmate will receive the message within 48 hours, sometimes even on the same day. Unfortunately inmates can only answer by regular mail.

Information regarding this can be found on the homepages of the different prisons. But we advice you to also ask your pen friend about them.