I was doing some research on the inmate I am writing to and one of the things that he has gotten in trouble for while in there is violation/mail. What does this mean? I'm sure he would tell me if I ask him but I can't wait that long. Curious, any answer to this will be appreciated.

There is no way to know, without asking, what the violation is.

In "some" states, sexual content is closely monitored and disallowed. In other states, it could be a photo that showed too much skin that earns a violation.

In "most" states, it is a violation to discuss firearms, other inmates or to talk about the prison facilities and layout.

In most states, maps are not allowed that show the local areas or roads near a prison.

In order to know exactly what that means, one would have to be able to review a copy of the institutional policies concerning mail.

Using a "catch-all" term such as "violation/mail" could easily constitute numerous different policy or rules violations. This is not much different that criminal law, wherein a particular offense can be committed in a variety of ways. For example, it would be impossible to list a specific criminal offense as "Murder by knife"; "Murder by gun"; "Murder by baseball bat"; "Murder by auto". Basically, it is filtered down to "Murder", with numerous conditional offenses included within the code.

I think you are probably looking at something that we normally wouldnt think anything of, but it is against facility mail policy..I am sure it would be something probably very small...