Criminal Wants Someone to Look after His Cats When He's in Prison

I had just read a comment on another page on this website from an anonymous person who says that he looks after 3 cats.  He says he is about to go to prison.  It also says that he lives alone, has no family and nobody he believes who can look after his cats when he is in prison.

I say 'he' but the person maybe 'she'. It doesn't matter. The problem is who does she contact to look after her cats when she is in prison.  It is the first time I have been asked that question and the answer may be difficult to find.

Normally, a prisoner who is about to embark on a short sentence will ask a friend or family to look after their cats until they are released.  If, notwithstanding that the prisoner has family to help, she is to embark on a road long prison sentence than it would seem necessary to re-home the cats.  This is regrettable but it seems to me a natural consequence of the crime that the person has committed. It is simply an additional loss or punishment.

A short sentence is a different kettle of fish.  In the UK there are individual cat fosters who work for large organisations like Cats Protection and The Cinnamon Trust.  I read that The Cinnamon Trust foster cats if, for example, the owner has to go into hospital or residential care.  In other words, The Cinnamon Trust appear to have a system whereby they will look after someone's cat for a long period time.  I would certainly contact them if I was about to start a prison sentence and had a cat or cats provided the sentence was not too long.  Cats Protection is a large national organisation in England with many volunteers who work from home and look after rescue cats pending re-homing.  I would have thought that they would be able to help and are certainly worth contacting.

The person may also talk to their veterinarian may have some contacts.

What about the USA?  In the USA there are also very many individual people who foster cats. These people are extremely knowledgeable about caring for cats.  The question is where are they and what might they charge for the service?

Once again I would probably start with my veterinarian as a first contact because they will no doubt be in the loop in respect of cat rescues in the area and cat rescue organisations have contact with cat fosterers.

The Humane Society of the United States might be able to help (contact).

One thing a person could do is to search for animal and cat rescue organisations who require volunteers to help them.  If an organisation is searching for volunteers then of course they have volunteers and the volunteers will very often be people involved in fostering cats. Accordingly, a Google search for “cat rescue organizations need volunteers" may bear fruit but some work will be required to drill down to find a suitable organisation.

If anybody other than better idea than please leave a comment.  My searches on Google have not produced a definitive answer.  I was looking for a list of organisations who used volunteers to foster cats but was unable to find one without spending more time searching.