Sending Mail and Photos to Clinton Correctional Facility

Box 2001, Not Box 2000

Address a letter like this.

John Smith, 12A3456
Clinton Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 2001
Dannemora, NY 12929

Name and DIN together on the first line. The DIN is the Department Identification Number the state lookup returns, and mail without it cannot be sorted to a person.

The prison’s own address is P.O. Box 2000. That is what appears on its main listing, on state procurement paperwork and on anything written to the facility as an institution. P.O. Box 2001 is the box for mail to a person in custody.

New York does this at most of its prisons: a business address and a separate incarcerated mail box. At Clinton the two happen to be a single digit apart, which makes it easier to get wrong here than anywhere else in the state.

And the Street Is Route 374

While you are checking the box, check the street.

DOCCS gives 1156 Route 374. So does the Village of Dannemora, the prison’s host municipality. Several map and review listings give 1156 Cook Street instead, and that is not the address the state publishes.

If you are using the post box, the street line does not carry the letter anyway, but it is worth knowing which one is right when a map sends you somewhere on a visiting day.

Everything the Envelope Needs

Four things, and the fourth is the one that gets letters bounced.

• Their full name and DIN
• Clinton Correctional Facility, written out
• P.O. Box 2001, Dannemora, NY 12929
• Your full return address, in the top left corner

Mail arriving without a clearly identifiable sender name and return address is treated as contraband and is not delivered. That is the department’s own wording and it applies across New York.

Paper, Not a Scan

Worth saying plainly.

Mail here is opened and inspected at the prison, checked for cash, cheques, money orders, printed material and contraband, and then handed over. Your person holds the envelope you addressed and the paper you wrote on.

Several New York county jails have gone the other way, routing personal mail to a scanning centre in another city and delivering it as an image on a tablet. State prisons have not.

The Statewide Refusal List

Published by the department, and it applies everywhere in New York.

Refused	Note
Polaroid photographs	The format, whatever the picture shows
Nude photographs
Postage stamps	Do not enclose stamps for a reply
Letters from other people	Third-party mail, children excepted
Tape, glue or paste	Including on newspaper clippings
Cash, cheques and money orders	These have their own address

There is a paper limit too: five pages of printed or photocopied material per letter, with newspaper clippings counting one page each. Legal papers for an active case can exceed it only with the Superintendent’s written approval in advance, and no more than once every four months.

Photographs and the Instant-Print Ban

Ordinary prints are fine and welcome.

Polaroids are refused anywhere in New York. It is the format rather than the subject: an instant print has a thick backing that can conceal things, so the whole category is out.

Use a photo service or print at home on photo paper, and keep writing on the back to a name and a date.

Money Has Its Own Address

Do not enclose it. The inspection is looking for exactly this.

Money orders and cheques go to the JPay lockbox, PO Box 531190, Miami, Florida 33153, with a JPay deposit slip, free to post and capped at $999.99 per transaction. The visitor lockbox at the prison takes up to $50 cash per person per day.

So Clinton has three post boxes in play, and it is worth keeping them straight: 2001 for letters, 2000 for the institution, and a Florida lockbox for money.

Vendors Send the Packages

Families can no longer post or carry a package in. Everything comes directly from an approved vendor by USPS, FedEx or UPS.

The allowances are two non-food packages a year and three food packages a month, with food capped at a combined 40 pounds. DOCCS publishes a disapproved vendor list and Directive #4911 carries the detail.

Lawyers’ Mail Is Different

Correspondence from a lawyer or a court is privileged, under Directive #4421 rather than the general correspondence rules.

It is opened in front of the person it is addressed to, not in the mailroom. A relative cannot send ordinary mail under a legal label, and trying it risks the letter rather than helping it.

Posting From Anywhere

Letters go to P.O. Box 2001, not the prison’s own P.O. Box 2000. Pigeonly prints and mails your letters and photos to P.O. Box 2001 with the name, the DIN and the facility already filled in.