Taconic Correctional Facility

Taconic Correctional Facility is a medium-security facility for female inmates that is located in Bedford Hills, New York. This facility can house approximately 500 inmates and is operated by the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

This facility is across the street from the state’s maximum-security prison for women, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. 

Prison Insights

Visiting Hours and Rules

Inmate mail may include personal letters (a maximum of five pages per envelope) and photographs. However, you are not allowed to send: nude photographs, Polaroid photos, postage stamps, and letters from other people, except children.

Inmates are allowed two food packages per month, and the combined weight cannot exceed 35 pounds. Food items must be commercially or hermetically sealed and contain no alcohol. Please review the list of allowable items before sending your package. You can also send packages containing non-food items like clothing and tobacco.

How to Call an Inmate

Inmates at the Taconic Correctional Facility can’t receive incoming calls, but they do have access to phones during daytime hours to make outgoing calls. For complete details on how to call an inmate in New York, please click here.

How to Send Money

Programs For Inmates

The inmate programs at Taconic Correctional Facility include:

Adult Basic Education

The Adult Basic Education Program 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.

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.

College Program

Taconic offers two different degree programs for inmates with a high school diploma or GED. Through Hudson Link, Marymount Manhattan College provides courses for an Associate's Degree, and the Bard Prison Initiative also provides courses for an Associate’s Degree.

Cosmetology

The Cosmetology course covers the care of hair, skin and nails, and provides instruction in the skills of hair shaping, coloring, thermal curling, straightening and styling of hair. The goal of this course is to provide students with entry level skills as a hairdresser, beautician or manicurist, and to prepare them to take the Cosmetology licensing exam.

Family Reunion Program

The Family Reunion Program (FRP) provides approved incarcerated individuals and their families the opportunity to meet for a designated period of time in a private home-like setting.

The goals of the program include:

• Preserving and strengthening family ties that have been disrupted as a result of incarceration.
• Fostering positive and responsible conduct.
• Facilitating post-release reintegration into the family and community, thereby reducing the likelihood of recidivism.

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.

Living Safely & Without Violence

Living Safely and Without Violence is an intervention designed for females involved in the criminal justice system who have specifically been charged with violent crimes and/or who have a history of aggressive behavior, including self-harm, or violence towards others.

Emphasis is placed on exploring how and why individuals use violence and how they can live safely without it. Participants are introduced to an integrated and multi-sensory approach, which focuses on emotional regulation, interpersonal competencies, and mindfulness practices.

Network Program

The Network Program is designed to promote the positive involvement of participants in an environment that focuses on their successful community reentry. The goal of this program is to assist individuals in learning cooperative work and leadership skills, while demonstrating responsible behaviors before returning home.

Painting & Decorating

Students in this program learn techniques of paint application to both interior and exterior surfaces. Skills taught relate to preparation of the surface and application of stains, clear finishes, and pigmented paint. Students learn techniques of wallpapering, and wood refinishing. Instruction is given in safety procedures in handling paints, ladders, and scaffolding.

Relapse Treatment

Intensive 60-day substance abuse treatment for incarcerated individuals participating in a continuous Temporary Release program who submit a positive urinalysis or report substance use.

Relapse Treatment is an alternative to disciplinary sanctions and permits incarcerated individuals to return to a continuous Temporary Release program facility and resume/enter an outpatient treatment program upon successful completion of relapse.

Special Education Program

The Special Education Program provides intensive one-on-one and small group instruction to students under 21 years of age identified as having a disability. Instruction may be provided in a self-contained Special Education class, resource room, or through the consultant teacher model.

The goal of this program is to tailor learning activities to the diagnosed needs of students with a disability to enable them to achieve learning objectives and, where appropriate, to successfully participate in the regular academic program.

Women’s Initiative

The Women’s Initiative seeks to assist incarcerated women with their unique needs regarding rehabilitation and re-entry into their communities. Workshops include “Who am I," “Self-esteem & Self-worth,” “Boundaries & Relationships," and “Grief & Forgiveness.”

The focus of these workshops is to discover where one comes from and look at how the physical environment, socio-cultural influences, and spirituality help define them as a person. The program seeks to help participants understand how their thoughts influence how they see themselves and, in turn, how that affects the decisions they make.

Pictures of Taconic Correctional Facility

Careers at Taconic Correctional Facility