Gouverneur Correctional Facility

Gouverneur Correctional Facility is a medium-security facility for adult men that is located in Gouverneur, New York. This facility can house approximately 1,075 inmates and is operated by the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

Prison Insights

Visiting Hours and Rules

Visiting hours for the general population at Gouverneur Correctional Facility are on weekends and holidays between 8:00 am and 2:45 PM. You must arrive by 2:00 pm to visit with your inmate.

Inmates in the Special Housing Unit are allowed one non-legal visit each week. 

• SHU 8:00AM to 2:45PM Weekends and Holidays; Latest Arrival Time 2:00PM
• S-Block 5:00PM to 9:00PM Saturday and Sunday; Latest Arrival Time 8:00PM

No more than four people are allowed to visit an inmate at once. For more detailed visiting information, click here.

Before You Visit

You must be prepared to visit an inmate. Confirm that the inmate has visitation privileges and has not been transferred to another facility. Also, bring current photo identification, like a driver’s license or passport.

Double check the visiting schedule, so you arrive on the designated day during proper visiting hours. If you have made special arrangements with the facility, call before leaving to ensure that plans for your visit have been made and are in place. Be sure to check clothing and jewelry for compliance with the dress code.

If you are bringing a child and you are not the legal guardian or parent, be sure you have a notarized statement from the child’s parent or legal guardian.

Before leaving home, check your vehicle for contraband and/or hazardous items and be sure to remove these items. Leave purses, wallets, and electronic devices in the glove compartment or in the trunk of your car. Do not leave minor children waiting in the car or your visit will be ended.

Do not have any contraband on you when you enter the facility and do not bring anything into the visiting room to give to the offender. 

How to Call an Inmate

How to Send Money

Programs For Inmates

Adult Basic Education

The Adult Basic Education Program provides individualized instruction. This is provided to meet the needs of incarcerated individuals who have reading and math scores below the sixth grade level on the Department's selected standardized test in reading, mathematics, and language arts in the context of real life adult problems and situations.

The goal of this program is to provide individuals with skills or competencies necessary to function successfully in contemporary society and to enable the participant to function at the sixth grade reading and mathematics level.

Aggression Replacement Training (ART)

A cognitive behavioral intervention program designed to assist individuals in improving social skills, moral reasoning, coping with and reducing aggressive behavior through the use of self regulating exercises and mindfulness.

ART consists of three coordinated interventions: anger control training, structured learning, and moral reasoning. The program consists of five modules with 32 sessions.

Participants will learn to understand what causes them to feel angry and act aggressively, as well as techniques to reduce anger/aggressive behavior, self-regulate to stop "automatic" aggression, and to build skills that help make better choices.

Building Maintenance

The Building Maintenance program provides students with fundamental skills required to make minor repairs in carpentry, masonry, electricity, plumbing, and weatherization. This course prepares the student with entry-level skills as a building superintendent.

College Program

Gouverneur offers on-site courses for incarcerated individuals to earn an Associate’s Degree in Individual Studies or Human Services from Jefferson Community College.

Custodial Maintenance

The Custodial Maintenance Course emphasizes custodial services, including floor care, carpet and fabric care, upholstery care, window care, restroom care, and the safe use and operation of power cleaning equipment and sanitation chemicals.

The goal of this course is to provide students with competencies in entry level skills in commercial, institutional and industrial cleaning, and maintenance.

Electrical Trades

This course provides instruction in basic electricity with emphasis on installing and servicing of all types of residential and commercial wiring systems. Skills taught include code interpretation, installation and servicing of circuits and controls, use of testing equipment, reading of architectural drawings, and wiring schematics.

The goal of the Electrical Trades course is to provide students with entry level skills as an apprentice or electrician's helper.

Floor Covering

The Floor Covering Course covers the installation of most floor covering materials including types of carpeting, floor tile, sheet goods, wall tile, and quarry slate. Students learn layout and measurement, floor preparation, maintenance and repair, and job estimation.

The goal of this course is to provide students with entry level skills which will enable them to be employed as a Floor Covering Mechanic. A New York State Department of Labor Apprenticeship Program and NCCER Core Certification Training Program are available.

General Business

The General Business course provides students with instruction on using computers, calculators, and printers. Students become familiar with software applications, including word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, and desktop publishing. In addition, instruction is offered in filing, mailing procedures, bookkeeping, and business correspondence.

The goal of the course is to prepare students to work in a business office. IC3 Digital Literacy Certification from Certiport and Microsoft Office Specialist Certifications in Excel, PowerPoint, and word processing from Certiport are available.

Horticulture

Horticulture refers to the production, care, management and marketing of plants such as flowers, shrubs, trees, bulbs, and turf. Training includes instruction and practice in techniques and methods of plant propagation, transplanting, pruning, cultivation, fertilization and greenhouse production, as well as plant identification and insect control.

Students learn basic landscape design through the use of brick, stone and wood in the construction of walks, walls and fences as well as the construction of new lawns, mowing, fertilization and insect and disease control. Instruction is given in operating various horticulture hand and power equipment, such as mowers, tractors, rototillers, and other garden tools.

The goal of the Horticulture course is to provide a student with entry level skills to be employable as Horticulturist or Groundskeeper.

Incarcerated Veterans Program

The Incarcerated Veterans Program is designed to address the readjustment and reentry needs of veterans returning to society following a period of incarceration. All correctional facilities provide Level I services ensuring that veterans obtain a copy of their DD214 Military Discharge papers and that appropriate referrals are made through the Veterans Administration (VA) for ongoing treatment, vocational training, education, housing, and employment when the veteran is released from incarceration. 

Gouverneur is a Level II facility and also has a Veterans Educational Group that meets on a regular basis providing education, camaraderie and support to each other.

Masonry

Students in masonry are taught the fundamentals of wall construction, mixing mortar, learning to work with brick, cinderblock, cement blocks, and concrete. Students must also learn blueprint reading and trade mathematics.

The goal of the Mason Shop course is to provide students with entry-level skills as a bricklayer or a mason.

Waste Management

The Waste Management Program provides recycling and organic waste diversion and avoided cost services for the Department and selected municipalities. 

Program goals include providing:

• solid waste disposal cost avoidance to the Department through procurement, recycling and organic waste composting strategies
• statutory compliance with solid waste regulations and benign environmental stewardship waste management practices
• relevant and productive inmate work experiences

Welding

Students are taught various techniques of arc, oxyacetylene, tungsten inert gas (TIG) and metallic inert gas (MIG) welding and cutting. They learn control of equipment in the various positions of welding, as well as many types of joints, beads, welds and braces. This course includes blueprint reading and working from layouts and diagrams.

The goal of the Welding Course is to develop students' entry level skills as a welder.

Youth Assistance Program

The Youth Assistance Program is specifically designed to provide positive guidance and direction to at-risk youth in the surrounding community from becoming involved in illegal activities or committing crimes which may lead to the criminal justice system.

The program includes presentations by selected facilitators who are incarcerated. They discuss the circumstances and behaviors that led to their incarceration and the consequences of life in prison. 

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