Phone Calls at Albion Correctional Facility

Nothing to Arrange

The shortest answer on this guide: there is nothing for you to set up.

No account, no card to register, no balance to top up, no per minute rate. New York stopped charging families for state prison calls on 1 August 2025, and Albion is covered by it.

Anyone telling you to open an account to receive calls from Albion is working from the rules that applied before then.

The Weekly Allowance

Free calls	Three per week
Length	Up to fifteen minutes each
Credited	Every Saturday
After the three	Calls run up to thirty minutes
Window	7:00 AM to 11:00 PM

The three reset weekly and do not carry over, so an unused week is gone.

She Calls You

Calls are placed from inside. You cannot ring in, and there is no number at Albion that connects to a person in custody.

In practice that means keeping your phone reachable between 7:00 AM and 11:00 PM. With three calls in a week, a missed one is a large share of the month’s contact.

Fifteen Numbers, Her List

Each person keeps an approved call list of up to fifteen numbers, and she manages it. A family member cannot ask for a number to be added from outside.

So a changed mobile number has to reach her by letter or on a call before it can be dialled. A number nobody inside knows about is a number that does not work.

Why the Phone Does More Here

Most of this page is statewide. What gives it extra weight at Albion is the shape of the visiting schedule.

Albion lists weekends as its visiting days, gives each family one of the two days by last name, allows one visit per scheduled day, and sits about seven hours from New York City in the far west of the state. A free visitor bus helps, and it still leaves most downstate families reaching Orleans County a handful of times a year.

Three free calls a week is not a supplement to visiting here. For many households it is the main line.

Calls With Children

Children are frequently the reason a call matters at a women’s prison, and the fifteen minute limit is short when a child is on the line.

Worth knowing that letters are not limited the same way. A child’s drawing or a few lines in a child’s hand can go in an envelope, because the rule that normally blocks third-party mail makes an exception for children.

Recorded, With One Exception

Calls from New York state prisons are recorded and may be monitored, with a notice at the start of each call.

Properly arranged legal calls are the exception and are not monitored. Ordinary family calls are, so speak on the basis that somebody may listen to it later.

What a Call Leaves Behind

Nothing, which is the whole problem with it.

Forty five minutes a week, spread across three calls, and when it ends there is nothing on the shelf. A letter gets read again and a photograph goes on a wall. Pigeonly sends both to Albion from your phone, addressed to State School Road with the DIN in place, so the days between Saturdays hold something.