Sending Mail and Photos to Chemung County Jail

The Address

Incarcerated Individual's Full Name
Chemung County Jail
211 William Street
Elmira, NY 14901

That address is confirmed three ways from the county itself: the Corrections Division page, the county’s staff directory entry for the Chemung County Jail, and the county Health Department’s own food service inspection reports, which name the facility and give 211 William Street as its address.

Two Addresses in Elmira That Are Not This One

This is the part that costs people letters, and it is worth three minutes.

Elmira Correctional Facility is a New York State prison at 1879 Davis Street, on 607-734-3901, with its own post office box. It shares the 14901 ZIP code with the county jail and its phone number differs from the jail’s by a single digit.

A letter carrying the right ZIP and the wrong street goes to a maximum security state prison run by a different agency. It is not walked across town, and the person you are writing to never sees it.

P.O. Box 588, Elmira, NY 14902 is not the jail either. That box belongs to the Sheriff’s Civil Division at 203 William Street, and other county departments use it too. You will find it quoted on some state paperwork as the Sheriff’s address, because letters to the Sheriff go there. Letters to somebody in custody do not.

So the street line is the load bearing part of this envelope. Get 211 William Street on it and the ZIP looks after itself.

Books, Magazines and Newspapers

Magazines, newspapers and soft cover books are allowed, to a maximum of three each at a time. They are only allowed in if they are purchased from, and mailed to the facility by, a company whose ordinary business includes selling and shipping such items through the United States Postal Service, UPS or Federal Express.

The county’s own examples are Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or any other publishing company.

Read that carefully, because it rules out the obvious workaround. Buying a paperback and posting it yourself does not satisfy it. The retailer has to be the sender. A used book from a charity shop, a magazine you have finished with, a hardback of any kind: none of those get in.

Books That Do Get Through Another Way

The tablets issued at admission carry educational materials and courses alongside legal material. That is not a substitute for a book somebody chose, but it is worth knowing the reading is not down to the post alone.

Sending Photos Through Pigeonly

Pigeonly prints and posts photos and letters to the county’s confirmed street address, which takes the ZIP code trap off the table entirely.