Phone Calls at Franklin Correctional Facility

Nothing to Open, Nothing to Fund

This is the shortest answer on the whole guide: you do not have to do anything.

There is no account to create, no card to register, no balance to keep topped up and no per minute rate. New York stopped charging families for prison calls on 1 August 2025, and Franklin runs on the same statewide system as every other state prison.

If somebody has told you to set up an account to receive calls from Malone, they are working from the old rules.

Three Calls, Credited on Saturdays

The allowance works like this.

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 they do not roll over, so an unused week is gone, not banked.

They Call You

Calls are placed from inside. You cannot ring in, and there is no number at Franklin that will put you through to a person in custody.

What that means practically is that your phone needs to be reachable during the window, 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM. A missed call is not a small thing when there are three of them in a week.

Fifteen Numbers, Managed From Inside

Each person keeps an approved call list of up to fifteen numbers, and they add and remove them. A family member cannot request a number be added from the outside.

So if your number changes, tell them in a letter or on the next call. A new mobile number that nobody inside knows about is a number that cannot be dialled, and the list is the only route onto the phone.

The Distance Is Why This Matters Here

Most of this page is statewide. The reason it carries more weight at Franklin is geography.

Malone is roughly six hours from New York City. Franklin allows one visiting day per week, and the free state visitor bus does not stop here, although it does serve Upstate Correctional Facility 250 yards up Bare Hill Road.

For a downstate family, that adds up to a few visits a year at best. Three free calls a week is not a supplement to visiting at this prison. For most families it is the main line, and it is the reason the August 2025 change landed harder in the far north than it did downstate.

Special Housing and the Phone

Phone access in special housing is restricted and is decided case by case under the housing rules, not the general allowance above.

If the person you are calling has moved into special housing, do not assume the three weekly calls continue unchanged. The letter route is unaffected, which is worth remembering during a period when calls may not come.

Recorded, With One Exception

Calls from New York state prisons are recorded and may be monitored. There is a notice at the start of the call and it applies to every call on the list.

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

What a Call Cannot Carry

Fifteen minutes goes quickly, and three of them a week is forty five minutes to hold a family together across six hours of road.

A call ends and leaves nothing behind. A letter sits on a shelf and a photograph goes on a wall, and both get read again on the days there is no call. Pigeonly sends letters and photos to Franklin from your phone, addressed to P.O. Box 10 with the DIN in place, so the days between Saturdays are not empty ones.