Visiting Groveland Correctional Facility

Two Visits a Month

This is the rule that shapes everything else. NYSDOCCS publishes it for Groveland as two visits per month.

Most New York prisons let a family come on every day that belongs to them. Groveland does not. Even when a date matches the DIN, it only works if the month’s two visits have not already been used.

So the question is not only “which days can we come” but “which two of them”. If several people visit the same person, agree between you who takes which, because a visit used by one of you is gone for everyone that month.

Odd Number, Odd Date

The dates follow the DIN, as NYSDOCCS publishes it:

Incarcerated individuals with DINs ending in odd numbers will be allowed visitors on odd calendar days. Incarcerated individuals with DINs ending in even numbers will be allowed visitors on even calendar days.

If the DIN ends in 7, your dates are the 1st, 3rd, 5th and so on. If it ends in 4, yours are the 2nd, 4th, 6th and so on. Zero counts as even.

A Saturday and the Sunday after it are an odd and an even date, so on a normal weekend only one of the two days is yours, and it alternates between Saturday and Sunday from week to week.

The Month-End Tie-Break

There is one exception, and it is printed on the facility’s own page:

If consecutive odd numbered calendar days fall on a weekend, the 2nd day will be an EVEN visit day.

A month with 31 days is followed by the 1st, so two odd dates can land together. When that pair falls on a Saturday and Sunday, the Sunday switches to even. An odd DIN keeps the Saturday, and an even DIN gets the Sunday.

Planning Your Two Dates

Put the two rules together and a month looks like this:

1. List the weekend dates that match the DIN. There are usually four or five.
2. Add any weekday holiday in the month.
3. Pick two, and agree them with anyone else who visits.
4. Check the month-end if either date sits next to a 31st.

NYSDOCCS publishes a dated visitation calendar for Groveland on the facility’s page, and it is the authority on which dates belong to which group.

Weekday Holidays

Under the NYSDOCCS visitation update that took effect on 7 September 2026, Groveland is one of the prisons that also takes visits on weekday holidays. The facility’s own page still reads “Weekends”, and the update is the newer of the two.

A weekday holiday is still a visit, so it counts toward the two.

Hours, and the 2:15 PM Line

Visits run 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. The latest you can arrive is 2:15 PM, three quarters of an hour before the room closes. Arriving after it means no visit that day, and with only two a month that is a costly miss.

If space runs short, staff first ask visitors to end their visit voluntarily.

Three Visitors, and the Under Fives

Three visitors at a time, plus one child under the age of five, who sits on an adult’s lap and does not count toward the three.

A child of five or older does count, so three adults and a six year old is a group of four and will not fit. With two visits a month, it is worth deciding in advance who comes on which.

How a Visit Is Arranged

Nothing needs booking for a regular visit. Under NYSDOCCS rules you can visit during visiting hours with proper photo identification, as long as the person inside agrees to the visit.

On a first visit, staff take your photograph for the visitor identification system and you sign a statement agreeing to the visiting rules. Leave time for it before the 2:15 PM cutoff.

Some visitors need advance written approval: people on probation or parole, NYSDOCCS staff, volunteers, contract workers, and anyone with past or pending criminal cases.

Children are straightforward. Their own children can visit without written permission where the parent’s name is on the birth certificate. A child under eighteen visiting without a parent or guardian needs the parent’s written permission.

Getting to Sonyea

Groveland is at 7000 Sonyea Road, Sonyea, in the Town of Groveland, Livingston County.

From	Approximate journey
Dansville	About fifteen minutes
Rochester	About an hour
Buffalo	About an hour and a quarter
New York City	About five and a half hours

Some map listings put the prison in Dansville or give a different street number. Use 7000 Sonyea Road, Sonyea, NY 14556.

The free state visitor bus does not serve Groveland.

What to Bring

Photo identification for everyone over sixteen, and the visit does not proceed without it.

Phones, bags and electronics stay in the car.

If you are bringing money, the visitor lockbox takes $50 in cash a day in total, however many of you are visiting, and it takes money orders and checks as well.

The Rest of the Month

Two visits leave twenty-eight or so days with no visiting room at all.

Calls from every New York state prison have been free since August 2025, and letters and photographs fill what the calls cannot. Pigeonly sends both from your phone, addressed to P.O. Box 50 in Sonyea, so the weeks between visits are not silent ones.