Mail and Photos at Upstate Correctional Facility

How to Address It

John Smith, 12A3456
Upstate Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 2000
Malone, NY 12953

Name and DIN together on the first line. The DIN is the Department Identification Number from the state lookup, and mail without one cannot be sorted to a person.

Two Boxes, 250 Yards

	Upstate	Franklin
Street	309 Bare Hill Road	62 Bare Hill Road
Post box	P.O. Box 2000	P.O. Box 10
ZIP	12953	12953-0010
Town	Malone	Malone

Same town, same road, roughly 250 yards between the gates. The box number is the only thing on the envelope that tells them apart.

A letter that reaches Malone with the wrong box is not carried down the road by hand. It goes back, or it goes nowhere, and either way the person waiting does not get it.

Confirm the facility name on the lookup before you write the address, every time.

Four Things on the Envelope

• Full name and DIN on the first line
• P.O. Box 2000, then Malone, NY 12953
• Your full return address, in the top left corner
• Nothing else written on the outside

A letter with no return address is treated as contraband and is not delivered. That is the department’s wording and it holds statewide.

Paper, Not a Scan

Mail at Upstate is opened and inspected at the prison and then handed over. Your envelope, your handwriting, your paper.

Many county jails in New York now route personal mail to a scanning centre and deliver it as an image on a tablet. State prisons do not, and Upstate is a state prison. That is worth knowing if the last place you wrote to was a county jail, because the experience on the receiving end is completely different.

The Refused List

Published by the department, applying statewide.

Refused	Note
Polaroid photographs	The format itself, whatever the picture shows
Nude photographs
Postage stamps	Do not enclose stamps for a reply
Letters from other people	Third-party mail, with an exception for children
Tape, glue or paste	Including on newspaper clippings
Cash, checks, money orders	Covered below

There is also a paper limit: five pages of printed or photocopied material per letter, newspaper clippings counting one page each. Legal papers for an active case can exceed it only with the Superintendent’s written permission, in advance, and no more than once every four months.

Photographs Are Worth Sending

Ordinary printed photographs get through and they are the best thing you can put in an envelope.

Polaroids do not, anywhere in New York. The objection is the format and not the image, because an instant print has a thick backing that can conceal things, so the department excludes the category.

Order prints from a photo service or print them at home on photo paper, and keep writing on the back to a name and a date.

Money Is a Different Address

Nothing financial goes in the envelope. The inspection is specifically looking for it.

Deposits go to the JPay lockbox, PO Box 531190, Miami, Florida 33153, with a JPay deposit slip, capped at $999.99 per transaction and free by post. On a visit day the lockbox inside Upstate takes up to $50 cash a day in total.

Packages Come From Vendors

Families cannot post or carry packages in. Everything arrives directly from an approved vendor by USPS, FedEx or UPS.

The allowance is two non-food packages a year and three food packages a month, food capped at a combined 40 pounds. The department publishes a disapproved vendor list and Directive #4911 carries the detail.

Legal Mail Has Its Own Rules

Mail from a lawyer or a court is privileged under Directive #4421, and it is opened in front of the person it is addressed to, not in the mailroom.

A family member cannot send ordinary mail under a legal label. Trying it puts the letter at risk instead of speeding it up.

Between the Coaches

Even with the free visitor bus, most downstate families reach Malone a handful of times a year. The post covers the rest of it.

Pigeonly prints and sends letters and photos to Upstate with P.O. Box 2000, the Malone ZIP and the DIN already in place, so the one detail that separates this prison from the one up the road is not left to a hurried envelope.