Visiting Shawangunk Correctional Facility

Open Every Day

The NYSDOCCS visitation update that took effect on 7 September 2026 lists three prisons with daily visiting: Bedford Hills, Clinton and Shawangunk.

The Shawangunk calendar marks each day with the first letters of the last names eligible to visit, and every day reads A to Z. So there is no group to work out. Any day of the week, including holidays, is open to every family.

Hours, and the 1:45 PM Line

Visits run 8:30 AM to 2:15 PM. The latest you can arrive is 1:45 PM, half an hour before the room closes.

That is an early finish. A family used to afternoon visits elsewhere should plan to be through the door by lunchtime.

Special Housing

Anyone in the Special Housing Unit at Shawangunk is allowed one non-legal visit within a seven-day period, during normal visiting hours.

When the Room Is Full

If space runs short, NYSDOCCS ends visits in a published order:

1. Visitors who volunteer to leave.
2. Local visitors, from within 100 miles, after three hours.
3. Visitors from further away, after three hours.

Visits approved by special permission, and visitors who have not seen the person in six months, are protected from this.

Three Visitors, and the Under Fives

Three visitors at a time, plus one child under the age of five, who 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.

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. With a 1:45 PM cutoff, arrive in the morning.

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 Quick Road, Not McKendrick Road

Shawangunk is at 200 Quick Road, in the Town of Shawangunk, Ulster County, with a Wallkill address.

From	Approximate journey
New Paltz	About fifteen minutes
Newburgh	About half an hour
Poughkeepsie	About forty minutes
New York City	About an hour and three quarters

Wallkill Correctional Facility, a medium security prison, is in the same hamlet at 50 McKendrick Road, with its own visiting rules. Set the satnav to Quick Road.

The free state visitor bus does not serve Shawangunk.

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.

On the Days You Cannot Come

Every day is open, but the day is short and the trip is long for most families.

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 700, the family box, so the days between visits are not silent ones.