Mail and Photos at Franklin Correctional Facility

The Address, and the Number That Matters

Address a letter like this.

John Smith, 12A3456
Franklin Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 10
Malone, NY 12953-0010

The name and the DIN belong together on the first line. The DIN is the Department Identification Number the state lookup returns, and a letter without one cannot be sorted to a person.

Box 10 and Box 2000, 250 Yards Apart

This is the mistake that costs families a letter at Malone.

	Franklin	Upstate
Street	62 Bare Hill Road	309 Bare Hill Road
Post box	P.O. Box 10	P.O. Box 2000
ZIP	12953-0010	12953
Town	Malone	Malone

Two state prisons, one road, roughly 250 yards between the entrances. The town is the same, the road is the same and the ZIP shares its first five digits. The box number is the only thing on the envelope that separates them.

An envelope addressed to Malone with the wrong box does not get carried down the road by a member of staff. It is returned or it is lost, and either way the person waiting for it never sees it.

Check the facility name on the search result before you write the address, every time.

What the Envelope Needs

Four things, and the last one is the one people leave off.

• Full name and DIN on the first line
• P.O. Box 10, then Malone, NY 12953-0010
• Your full return address, in the top left corner
• Nothing else written on the outside

A letter with no return address is treated as contraband and is not delivered. That is the department’s own wording and it holds across New York.

They Get the Paper You Sent

Worth stating plainly, because it is no longer true everywhere.

Mail at Franklin is opened and inspected at the prison, checked for cash, money orders, printed material and contraband, and then handed over. Your envelope and your paper reach the person you sent them to.

Many county jails in New York have gone the other way, routing personal mail to a scanning centre in another state and delivering it as an image on a tablet. Franklin does not. What you wrote is what they hold, in your handwriting.

What Gets Turned Away

The department publishes this and it applies statewide.

Refused	Note
Polaroid photographs	The format itself, whatever the picture shows
Nude photographs
Postage stamps	Do not enclose stamps for a reply
Letters from other people	Third-party mail, with an exception for children
Tape, glue or paste	Including on newspaper clippings
Cash, checks, money orders	Covered below

There is also a paper limit: 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 permission, obtained in advance, and no more than once every four months.

Photographs

Ordinary printed photographs are welcome and they are the single best thing you can put in an envelope.

Polaroids are refused, across New York, because of the format and not the picture. An instant print has a thick backing that can hide things, so the whole category is excluded.

Order prints from a photo service or print them at home on ordinary photo paper. Keep anything written on the back to a name and a date.

Money Goes to Miami, Not to Malone

Do not put money in the envelope. The inspection is looking for exactly that, and it will not reach them.

Deposits go to the JPay lockbox, PO Box 531190, Miami, Florida 33153, with a JPay deposit slip, capped at $999.99 a transaction and free when sent by post. On a visit day there is also a lockbox inside Franklin taking up to $50 cash a day in total.

Packages Come From Vendors

New York no longer allows families to post or carry packages in. Everything arrives directly from an approved vendor, shipped 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. The department publishes a disapproved vendor list, and Directive #4911 carries the detail.

Legal Mail Runs Separately

Mail from a lawyer or a court is privileged, governed by Directive #4421, not the general correspondence directive.

It is opened in front of the person it is addressed to, not in the mailroom. A family member cannot send ordinary mail under a legal label, and trying it puts the letter at risk instead of speeding it up.

Six Hours Away, a Letter Does the Work

Malone is about six hours from New York City and the free state visitor bus does not come here, so for most families the post is not a supplement to visiting. It is the main channel.

That makes the box number worth getting right the first time. Pigeonly prints and sends your letters and photos to Franklin with P.O. Box 10, the DIN and the Malone ZIP already in place, so the one detail that separates this prison from its neighbour is not left to a hurried envelope.