Sending Mail and Photos to Ulster County Jail

The Address

Inmate's Name
c/o Ulster County Jail
380 Boulevard
Kingston, NY 12401

That is the county’s own wording, including the c/o. The Sheriff’s Corrections Division letterhead carries the same street address.

What Happens to Your Letter

This is the part worth understanding, because it is unusual.

On 7 May 2026 the New York State Commission of Correction approved variance 22-V-10, allowing this jail to depart from minimum standard 7004.3(a). The county’s request, in its own words, was authorisation to move from handing people physical copies of their mail to scanning correspondence directly to the tablet issued to the incarcerated individual.

The state said yes, with conditions. Three of them matter to you.

The original is kept. Non-privileged correspondence may be scanned, and the paper is placed in the person’s personal property. It is not destroyed and it is not retained by a contractor. They get it back.

Tablets have to be free. The facility has to give people tablets at no cost so they can read their mail. Otherwise scanning would put a price on reading a letter.

Privileged mail is out. More on that below.

Set that against how this normally goes. At Oswego, Chautauqua and Oneida, personal mail leaves the county for a box in Syracuse and the envelope you posted is never seen again. At Ulster the letter stays in the building and waits for them.

Legal Mail Is Not Scanned at All

The state was explicit. Scanning general and legal privileged correspondence is strictly prohibited, and will stay prohibited until the jail can demonstrate that such mail can be scanned without the contents being saved or accessed by anyone other than the person it was sent to.

In practice, privileged mail is opened in your person’s presence, resealed in an envelope in front of them, and then placed in their property. Staff do not walk away holding an open legal document.

If you are an attorney writing to a client here, or a family member forwarding something from one, that carve-out is the reason to mark it clearly as privileged.

The Arrangement Is Temporary

Variances are not permanent, and this one runs six months, expiring on 1 January 2027.

That does not mean mail stops. It means the terms above are the terms today, and they are due for review.

The Vendor

The scanning runs through Smart Communications, the same company that provides this jail’s tablets and messaging under the SmartInmate name. So one vendor covers the phones, the tablet and the post.

Packages Are a Separate System

Do not put goods in an envelope. The visitation policy states plainly that no packages will be accepted for inmates, and that refers to anything handed in or posted directly.

What does work is the county’s package programme at nycountypackages.com, or on 1.800.546.6283, which allows up to 100 dollars a week of food, snacks and other items ordered from a catalogue and shipped in.

Sending From Home

The address is simple here and the rules are unusually humane, which makes this one of the easier New York jails to write to. Pigeonly prints and posts letters and photos to Kingston, so the scan reaches their tablet and the paper reaches their property.