Calls cost nothing here, so the limit that shapes your week is 21 minutes of calling every three hours rather than a balance. Set up the rest of your contact in minutes.
Create your phone account in minutes
New York City stopped charging for jail calls, and the practical effect is that everything a family used to do around phone contact is now unnecessary. There is no account, no balance, no per-minute rate and no top-up. What replaces the cost is a time allowance and a set of lock-in periods, and reading those correctly explains most of the silences.
New York City made calls free from both tablets and the landlines in housing units. The department’s own announcement is plain about it: people in custody can make free phone calls from their tablets, they still have access to housing unit landlines, and all phone calls remain free.
So there is no family account anywhere in this system, nothing to fund, no per-minute rate, and no balance to run down. If a site tells you to open an account to receive calls from Rikers, it is describing a different jail system or an older one.
This is the one limit that shapes a family’s week, and it is easy to misread.
The handbook’s wording: a person is permitted, at the department’s expense, a total of 21 minutes of calling time every three hours during lock-out periods. Once those 21 minutes are used, the three-hour clock starts again and the phone is unavailable until it expires.
Three things follow, and they are not obvious:
Calls to 311 get six minutes of their own.
Phones work when people are not locked in their cells, and the lock-in schedule has more in it than people expect.
| Period | Status |
|---|---|
| 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM | Locked in, nightly |
| 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM | Locked in, headcount |
| 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM | Locked in, headcount |
| Everything else | Phones available |
Recounts happen, and they extend those windows without warning. A missed call at 3:30 in the afternoon is almost always the count.
There is no inbound line to a housing unit. Nothing in the department’s published material provides one.
There is also no published way for a family member to add or block their own number, and no PIN or PAC system documented for relatives. Contact is initiated from the inside, and if calls are not coming the conversation to have is with the person rather than with the department.
Calls may be monitored and recorded, except for privileged ones, and using the phone is treated as consent to that.
The department keeps a Do Not Record list, and it is worth being clear who qualifies: attorneys, treating physicians and clinicians, and clergy. Requests go on letterhead to [email protected] and take up to ten business days after approval.
Families cannot use it. It is not a route for a relative to have their own calls excluded from recording.
Tablets are issued within 30 days of a housing assignment, to everyone except people awaiting housing in new admissions and certain centrally monitored cases.
What they carry: free calls, educational services, a digital law library, e-books, AM and FM radio, departmental notices, and commissary ordering. Charging stations run 24 hours a day at the A-stations in housing areas.
The tablet follows the person through transfers, which matters on an island where people move between buildings.
A Grade 1 infraction freezes the entertainment features for 30 days. Calling is not described as something removed for discipline.
TTY and Video Relay Service are provided for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Two absences worth stating plainly, because families arrive expecting both.
There is no email or e-messaging product documented anywhere in the New York City jail system. Do not go looking for a JPay or GettingOut messaging account here; that pattern belongs to other systems.
There is no consumer video calling app either. The only video contact with family is the Friday televisit, booked through the department’s own web form rather than through a vendor, and covered on the visiting guide.
The system has been operated by Securus Technologies, named in the department’s own tablet program announcement.
The most recent contract notice published in the City Record extended that arrangement through June 30, 2026, with a replacement procurement under way. We have not been able to confirm from a published source who holds the contract now. It makes no practical difference to a family, since there is nothing to sign up for either way, but it is the reason this page does not point you at a provider’s website.
Work through it in this order:
6 of 8 questions
No. New York City made calls free from both tablets and housing unit landlines. There is no family account, no balance to fund and no per-minute rate. Any guide telling you to open and fund an account to receive calls from Rikers is describing another system or an older one.
Phone CallsEach person gets 21 minutes of calling time every three hours during periods when they are not locked in. Once those minutes are used the three-hour clock restarts. It is a rolling block rather than a daily total, and there is no published cap on how many calls fit inside it or how long a single call can run.
Phone CallsLock-in. People are locked in from 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM nightly, and again from 7:00 to 8:00 AM and 3:00 to 4:00 PM for headcount, with recounts extending those windows. A missed call in the late afternoon is almost always the count rather than a problem.
Phone CallsNo. There is no inbound line to a housing unit in the New York City jail system, and nothing in the department's published material provides one. Contact is initiated from the inside.
Phone CallsThere is no published way for a family member to add or block their own number, and no PIN or PAC system documented for relatives. If your number is not working, the conversation to have is with the person rather than with the department or the provider.
Phone CallsCalls may be monitored and recorded, and using the phone is treated as consent. The department keeps a Do Not Record list, but it covers attorneys, treating physicians and clinicians, and clergy only. Families cannot use it to have their own calls excluded.
Phone CallsFree calls, educational services, a digital law library, e-books, AM and FM radio, departmental notices and commissary ordering. Tablets are issued within 30 days of a housing assignment and follow the person through transfers. A Grade 1 infraction freezes the entertainment features for 30 days.
Phone CallsThere is no email or messaging product in the New York City jail system, so there is no account of that kind to set up. The only video contact with family is the Friday televisit, booked through the department's own online request form rather than through a vendor.
Phone CallsSix jails, and the lookup that cannot see police custody.
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All information on this page comes directly from official government and facility sources. How we verify information › Last verified September 15, 2026.