How to Fill Out and Submit the MDC Brooklyn Visiting Form (BP-A0629)

To get on an inmate’s visiting list at Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn, you have to complete the MDC Brooklyn visiting form, BP-A0629, and mail it back to the inmate so staff can run a background check. The inmate starts the process by sending you a blank form; you fill it out and return it; no visit can happen until the Bureau of Prisons approves you. Accuracy matters, because errors and omissions are the most common reasons applications get denied.

How You Receive the Form

You cannot initiate this on your own. When an inmate arrives at MDC Brooklyn, staff give them copies of Form BP-A0629 during admission orientation. The inmate fills in a short section at the top with their name, register number, and the facility’s mailing address, then mails a copy to each person they want approved.¹ A blank copy is also available on the BOP website, but you still need the inmate’s register number and the facility’s return address before you can submit anything.²

Completing the Form

BP-A0629 is two pages. Most of it is basic personal information, but a few fields ask for details you probably haven’t memorized. Gather everything before you start writing. Cross-outs on a document that goes through a background check look sloppy and can slow things down.

Personal Information

Field 1 wants your full legal name, matching your government-issued ID. Not a nickname. Fields 2 through 4 cover date of birth, home address with zip code, and phone number with area code. Field 5 asks for race and sex.³

Field 6 asks whether you are a U.S. citizen. If yes, put your Social Security number in Field 6a. If no, provide your alien registration number in Field 6b and your passport number in Field 6c. Non-citizens sometimes leave the passport line blank. Don’t. The BOP uses those numbers to run the background check, and a missing field can stall the application.²

Relationship and Background

Field 7 asks your relationship to the inmate: spouse, parent, sibling, friend, and so on. The category matters because the BOP treats family and non-family applicants differently. Fields 8 and 9 ask whether you want to visit and whether you knew the inmate before their current incarceration. If Field 9 is yes, Field 10 asks how long you’ve known each other and where the relationship developed.²

Field 11 is criminal history, and it causes the most denials. You have to disclose every conviction: the number of convictions, the date, the place, and the nature of each one. Leaving it blank when you have a record does not protect your privacy. It gets you denied. The form warns that false statements are a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.²

Field 12 asks whether you are currently on probation, parole, or any other form of supervision. If you are, list your supervising officer’s name, address, and phone number. Field 13 asks whether you correspond with or visit any other inmates at any facility. List them all by name and location. The BOP cross-references these answers, so omissions raise flags.

Identification and Signature

Field 14 asks for your driver’s license number and the issuing state. Below the numbered fields, you sign and date. Your signature is a legal attestation that everything on the form is true.²

If the applicant is under 18, a parent or legal guardian signs in the designated space at the bottom. That signature is the consent required for a minor to visit. Minors under 16 who visit with a parent or guardian are not required to present photo ID at check-in, but the accompanying parent must bring their own valid ID.⁴

Who Qualifies for the Visiting List

Federal regulations sort potential visitors into three categories, and each takes a slightly different approval track.

Immediate family: mother, father, step-parents, foster parents, brothers and sisters, spouse, and children. These relatives go on the list unless there are strong reasons to exclude them.⁵
Other relatives: grandparents, uncles, aunts, in-laws, and cousins. Approved if the inmate wants regular visits from them and nothing in their background disqualifies them.⁵
Friends and associates: approval generally requires a relationship that existed before the current incarceration. Exceptions are possible, particularly for inmates who have no other visitors, if the proposed visitor is reliable and poses no security concern.⁵

Non-family visitors get a more thorough background review, and staff may request additional information before adding them. When the BOP has little or no information available about a proposed visitor, visits can be denied while staff gather what they need.⁶

Mailing the Form Back

Once the form is complete, mail it to the inmate at MDC Brooklyn. BOP instructions direct you to send the completed form to the inmate’s address as listed on the form itself.¹ The standard mailing address for inmates at MDC Brooklyn is:

INMATE NAME & REGISTER NUMBER
MDC Brooklyn
Metropolitan Detention Center
P.O. Box 329002
Brooklyn, NY 11232⁷

Put the inmate’s full name and register number on the envelope. Mail that arrives without a register number can sit in the mailroom for days. Do not send the form to your own address, and do not send it to the staff P.O. Box (329001). The form has to route through the inmate’s mail so the unit team receives it and runs the background check.

Background Check and Approval

After the unit team receives your form, staff may contact law enforcement agencies and run your information through the National Crime Information Center database.¹ How deep the check goes depends on your category. Immediate family members often clear quickly. Friends and associates, and anyone with a criminal record or limited background information, take longer because staff need to pull and review more records.⁶

The BOP does not contact visitors about the status of their applications. Staff notify the inmate of each approval or denial, and the inmate passes that along to you. Once approved, the inmate also receives a copy of the visiting guidelines and directions to the facility to forward.⁶

Processing times vary. Expect several weeks at minimum. MDC Brooklyn holds a large pretrial population, and visiting list requests stack up. If you haven’t heard anything after a month, ask the inmate to check with their counselor rather than calling the facility yourself.

If Your Application Is Denied

Denials go to the inmate, not to you. The BOP’s Administrative Remedy Program is limited to inmates seeking review of issues related to their own confinement, so a prospective visitor has no direct way to appeal.⁸

The inmate can push back. The first step is informal resolution with the unit team: ask the counselor exactly what caused the denial and whether it can be fixed. If the problem was an omission or error on the form, submitting a corrected BP-A0629 is sometimes enough. If informal resolution fails, the inmate can file a formal Request for Administrative Remedy. How disapprovals are handled in practice is set by each institution’s supplement rather than national policy, so the inmate’s counselor is the best source for MDC Brooklyn’s process.⁹

1
Federal Bureau of Prisons. General Visiting Information
2
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Visitor Information – BP-A0629
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Federal Bureau of Pris ons. Visitor Information – BP-A0629
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Federal Bureau of Prisons. Visiting Regulations
5
eCFR. 28 CFR 540.44 – Regular Visitors
6
eCFR. 28 CFR 540.51
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Federal Bureau of Prisons. MDC Brooklyn
8
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Administrative Remedy Program
9
Federal Bureau of Prisons. Visiting Regulations