By Graham Rayman
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul has ordered the closure of an upstate prison but opted not to close two more prisons, as had been previously approved in the state budget, managing to anger both correction officers union officials and prison reform advocates.
Hochul, via the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, directed the closure as of March 11 of Bare Hill Correctional Facility, a prison roughly 350 miles north of New York City with 1,400 beds, about 600 of which were empty, records show.
Hochul also moved to consolidate operations at Collins CF about 30 miles south of Buffalo, but did not do as advocates were demanding and close Marcy Correctional Facility, where inmate Robert Brooks was murdered by guards on video last Dec. 10 and where Imam Abdulla Hadian, a veteran prison chaplain, took his own life Nov. 7 with a gun he was able to bring into the facility.
“The decision to close any facility is difficult for all involved,” DOCCS said in a statement. “This decision was decisively made to minimize the effect on staff, and at the same time attempt to close the gap on staffing shortages in our correctional facilities.”
Following a visit to Bare Hill in 2022, the Correctional Association of New York issued a scathing report, finding “extensive evidence of abusive staff behavior and an environment of fear,” physical and verbal abuse, poor treatment and retaliation. The facility had a rate of assaults that was 52% higher among inmates than in the system as a whole, the watchdog group said.
“CANY urges the Governor to go one step further, as authorized in the state budget, by closing Marcy Correctional Facility, a deeply troubled state prison where CANY has recently documented poor conditions and acute staffing challenges,” said Jennifer Scaife, CANY’s executive director.
Jose Saldana, director of the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, blasted the decision not to close Marcy, along with two prisons he characterized as notorious — Clinton CF and Attica CF.
“The Governor should focus on stopping the racist staff brutality, murders and deaths of incarcerated people across the New York State prison system,” Saldana said. “The focus should be on expanding pathways for people to be released back to the community through executive clemency and passage of Elder Parole, Fair and Timely Parole and sentencing reform, rather than allowing them to die in these brutal prisons.”
Saldana declared that Attica has been a “beacon of brutality,” while Clinton has a history of beating deaths, he said.
Chris Summers, president of the New York State Correction Officer and Police Benevolent Association, took the opposite tack, decrying the closure of another prison for its effect on his members. He noted that since 2009, the state has closed 27 prisons and that since January 2023, the number of correction officers and sergeants has dropped 28% while the number of inmates has increased by 7%.
“Closing prisons is a shortsighted Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” Summers said. “It does nothing to address historic staffing shortages, does nothing to curb the record levels of violence inside our facilities, and forces loyal public servants to choose between their livelihoods and their families.”
Summers did not mention the 22-day prison guard strike earlier this year in February and March. When the wildcat strike was settled, Hochul fired 2,000 officers who had refused to return to work.
Hochul’s decision come after the latest state budget allowed closure of up to three prisons after a review that examined unused beds, physical conditions and other factors, state officials said. Bare Hill’s 293 staffers will be transferred to other facilities, the state said.
The total prison population sits at 33,782 as of Tuesday, 53% lower than in 1999, when it was 72,772, state officials said.
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