Summary:

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — In the wake of a 22-day strike by correction officers at prison facilities run by New York State, the New York City-based Legal Aid Society released a report on Friday about what they called the strike’s human cost. According to incarcerated people quoted in the report, ongoing inhumane conditions in dozens of upstate prisons include food shortages, lack of medical care and mental health services, and restrictions on showers, court access, or protective custody.

Governor Kathy Hochul and officials at the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services considered the strike an illegal violation of the Taylor Law banning New York State employees from striking. Nor did the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the union for the correction officers, publicly endorse the strike.

Officers said their issues included understaffing, mandatory overtime, contraband, dangerous prisoners, and compliance with the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act—the HALT Act—that made it more difficult to control the prison. That law, enacted to limit the use of solitary confinement—which some law enforcement representatives argue does not even exist in New York—has faced consistent pushback from NYSCOPBA since taking effect in 2022.

According to Hochul, she negotiated many offers to get the striking guards back to work. Even so, they and their families eventually lost health insurance, and ultimately, over 2,000 lost their jobs.

On Thursday, fired and blacklisted correction officers gathered at the State Capitol to call out the unsafe working conditions that they said still affect those in the field and the lack of due process in their terminations.

But on Tuesday, another Capitol rally demanded stronger oversight of operations at state prisons and jails after the recent deaths of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi—and four others at Rikers Island, which is city-run, not state-run.

The strike began in mid-February after the death of Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility, which led to increased oversight like mandatory body cameras for correction officers. A majority of DOCCS staff stopped working at Attica, Sing Sing, Auburn, Mid-state, Clinton, Five Points, Great Meadow, Greene, and other correctional facilities statewide.

Some prisoners said they believe the strikers bristled at the increased scrutiny rather than genuine safety concerns. “They have to answer for what happened, said one person housed at Marcy Correctional Facility and quoted in the Legal Aid Society’s report, which is available to read at the bottom of this story. “They don’t want to be held accountable.”