Visiting Washington Correctional Facility

Whose Name Decides the Day

The Washington schedule says:

Weekend visits are divided into specific segments of the population by the first letter of the last name. Holiday visits are open to all incarcerated individuals.

It is the incarcerated person’s last name that counts. The groups are A to K and L to Z, and Saturday and Sunday usually go to different groups, swapping from week to week. Read your day off the dated calendar on the NYSDOCCS Washington page, revised August 2026.

Holidays Belong to Everyone

Holidays are open to all, and Washington takes visits on weekday holidays under the NYSDOCCS update effective 7 September 2026.

The 1:00 PM Line

Visits run 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM, but the latest you can arrive is 1:00 PM, the earliest cutoff of any prison in this guide. Washington allows one visit per day, so the morning is the visit.

Special Housing

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

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 1:00 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 Comstock

Washington is at 72 Lock Eleven Lane in the hamlet of Comstock, Town of Fort Ann, Washington County.

From	Approximate journey
Glens Falls	About twenty five minutes
Albany	About an hour and a quarter
New York City	About four hours

Great Meadow Correctional Facility, which used to stand in Comstock too, closed in November 2024. Directions to “the prison in Comstock” may point at the old site. Use Lock Eleven Lane.

The free state visitor bus does not serve Washington.

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 That Are Not Yours

One weekend day in two belongs to the other half of the alphabet, and the morning-only window makes each visit a long day.

Calls from every New York state prison have been free since August 2025, and letters and photographs land on the days you cannot come. Pigeonly sends both from your phone, addressed to P.O. Box 180 in Comstock, so the days in between are not silent ones.