NYS budget measure calls for hiring more prison guards in aftermath of long strike

ALBANY – The longest prison guard strike in state history earlier this year has prompted new measures in the state budget to hire more correction officers to contend with a staff shortage that legislators said is dangerous for guards and prisoners and expensive for taxpayers.

The budget bill, which is expected to be passed this week, also responds to the fatal beating of a prisoner while handcuffed by requiring all guards to wear body cameras and increasing the power of an independent agency to investigate treatment of prisoners.

The measure agreed to by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the leaders of the Democratic majorities of the Senate and Assembly also authorizes the closing of up to three of the state’s 42 prisons. Hochul closed three prisons in the last fiscal year.

Although Hochul and the Democratic-led Legislature agreed to some major changes in prisons in the budget bill, Republican supporters of the strikers, who violated the state Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public workers, said it wasn’t nearly enough.

The bill would:

• Require correction officers and supervisors to wear "body-worn cameras" at "all times while on duty." The cameras must be activated during any contact with prisoners, including strip searches. The video would have to be preserved  for at least 90 days.
• Allow residents of other states to be hired as correction officers. This will apply to people who live near prisons along state lines, but also thousands of federal workers who were fired by the Trump administration this year.
• Lower the minimum age for being a correction officer to 18, from 21. The law also states that 18- to 21-year-old correction officers would need special supervision.
• Require more prison records about the treatment of prisoners to be turned over to the independent Commission on Correction. The voluntary commission would be required to maintain a website that allows prisoners to submit complaints. The bill also would authorize the commission to hold "private interviews" of prison employees and prisoners who agree to the interviews.

The staff shortage in prisons continues to be costly as the system has about a third fewer guards than when fully staffed. About 11,359 correction officers are now on the job in prisons that hold more than 32,000 prisoners.

Hochul had invoked the state’s Taylor Law in firing 2,000 guards who refused to return to work. She had sent nearly 7,000 National Guard troopers to work at the prisons when the strike began and there are still about 3,115 at a cost of up to $168 million a month.

Hochul’s effort to "redo" prisons began in December with the beating death of prisoner Robert Brooks while handcuffed at the hands of guards in an assault caught on body camera video. It continued Feb. 17 with the unauthorized strike by corrections officers, citing a spike in assaults on them by prisoners. That strike that began with about 90% of guards ended 21 days later, with 2,000 correction officers who refused to return to work being fired by Hochul.

"Every single individual who enters a DOCCS facility deserves to be safe," Hochul said in announcing her proposed changes the prison system in February. "I will not be satisfied until there has been significant culture change."

But Republican legislators, many of whom represent upstate districts where prisons are major employers, said the budget should have included a repeal or revision of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act. The HALT Act limits use of solitary confinement as punishment.

Before the HALT Act, prisoners could be confined up to 23 hours a day over days, months, even years. The 2022 law requires guards to interact more with prisoners for programs aimed at preparing them for release, which studies show is usually more effective than solitary confinement.

Sen. Daniel Stec (D-Glens Falls) saidthe HALT Act "has made our prisons less safe for the staff and the incarcerated."

"This budget is a monumental lost opportunity," he said.

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.