Chemung County Jail Visiting Hours and Rules

Two Mornings a Week

The schedule is short enough to state in one line. Visiting is Mondays and Fridays, 6:45 AM to 1:15 PM.

Both days are mornings. The window closes at a quarter past one in the afternoon, and there is no evening session and no weekend session for family.

That shape has a practical consequence worth planning around. A visit at this jail almost always means taking time off work, and the gap between Friday afternoon and Monday morning is the longest stretch in the week with no visiting at all. Families who can only travel at weekends cannot visit here in person.

The 6:45 AM start is unusually early, and it is genuinely useful if you can take a morning. Arriving early in the window also leaves room if paperwork or a count slows things down.

Two Visits, One Hour Each

Each person in custody is authorised two one-hour visits per week.

That is the allowance for them, not for you. If several people want to see somebody, those two hours have to be shared out between everyone, because the total does not grow with the number of visitors.

Two Visitors, and Children Are Not Free

Each visit takes a maximum of two visitors, and the county is explicit that all children will be counted as a visitor.

This catches families constantly. A parent bringing two children is already three people and will not get in. A parent bringing one child fills both places, so a grandparent cannot come along.

Attorneys Have Their Own Arrangement

Attorneys visit Monday to Friday, 6:45 AM to 1:15 PM, which is a wider window than families get.

They can also meet clients after hours or at weekends, with a minimum of two hours’ notice to the jail. Anything outside normal hours has to be arranged with the jail directly rather than turned up for on the day.

For a family whose person has a hearing coming up, that flexibility is worth knowing about, because a lawyer can get in at times when you cannot.

Getting the Right Building

The jail is at 211 William Street. The Sheriff’s Office is a separate building at 203 William Street, eight doors down, with its own front desk and its own phone number.

Elmira also has a New York State prison, Elmira Correctional Facility, on Davis Street. It has its own visiting days and its own rules, and none of what is on this page applies there.

When Two Mornings a Week Is Not Enough

This schedule leaves a lot of families out, and the honest answer is that mail and calls carry more weight at this jail than at one with evening visiting. Letters go to 211 William Street, and the housing unit phones run until 9:30 at night, which is a much wider window than the visiting room offers. Pigeonly sends photos and letters to the same address between visits.