"The NYSCOPBA Executive Board's decision to use member dues for a public campaign is within their right," responded the
Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to the Legislative Gazette inquiry on recent NYSCOPBA's ad campaign. "We respect that, but we remain committed to having an open and ongoing dialogue. For the upcoming fiscal year, DOCCS has submitted a recommendation to the Division of the Budget for an increase in security staffing."
Many of the Republican senators serving on
the Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee believe adequate staffing levels are the first step in making sure New York's correctional facilities are safe.
"In addition to providing adequate staffing, it is critical that the men and women who work in such high-risk and stressful situations have access to the best training and latest equipment in order to ensure the safety of officers, staff and inmates," Sen.
Patrick Gallivan, chairman of the committee, told The Legislative Gazette in an exclusive interview.
"As a former state trooper and sheriff of Erie County, I know the job of a corrections officer is difficult and often dangerous, with violence inside our prisons all too common," added Gallivan, R-Elma.
Sens.
John DeFrancisco and
Betty Little, members of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, also stressed the importance of staffing levels in interviews with The Legislative Gazette.
"With the increased rate of retirements of correction officers I believe more correction officers should be hired and at a rate that will be sufficient to compensate for the reductions of the current force," said DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse.
"We need to ensure our officers have the resources and the staffing levels they need to stay safe and do a good job," said Little, R-Queensbury.
Gov.
Andrew Cuomo had proposed a $28 million reduction in the Division of Criminal Justice Services but a 1.4 percent increase in Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the 2015-2016 Executive Budget over the previous year.
"Tell Albany we have to invest in the resources needed to protect our communities and our state," states one of the advertisements created by NYSCOPBA.
Following the closure of several prisons in 2014, 473 security jobs were expected to be eliminated. However, as part of the 2014-2015 state budget, 275 corrections officers positions were approved, offsetting the projected job loss. As a result, only 198 jobs were eliminated.
This allowed 275 correction officers to transfer into funded positions at the remaining 54 correctional facilities, according to a statement released by DOCCS in November 2014. However, NYSCOPBA claimed, in a 2014 report, those positions, while critical to provide much needed support to prisons statewide, had not yet been filled, with no reasonable explanation.
The closure of four prisons in 2014 resulted in the elimination of 1,280 beds from operation and an annual savings of $30 million, according to 2014 Annual Report for the Assembly Committee on Correction.
"Prison closures have had an impact on the system as the officers and civilian staffs have had to adjust," Little said. "I've also spoken with officers who have said over the past ten years the type of prisoner they are seeing is more dangerous. More are in gangs and that activity goes from the street to inside the prison walls."
New York has one of the lowest crime rates in the United Sates, and also has the lowest imprisonment rate of any large state, according to 2015-16 Executive Budget. From 2004 to 2013, the crime rate in New York declined 15 percent, with a continued decline in the first six months of 2014. However, despite the decline in prison population the climate inside the facilities has grown more dangerous.
"The trend seems to be fewer incarcerations, but those being sent to prison are more hardened and more dangerous," Little said.
Since 2010, the offender population has decreased by more than 4,000 inmates, but the number of reported assaults on correction officers increased by 30 percent, according NYSCOPBA.
"This trend does not surprise me," said Sen.
John Bonacic, R-Mount Hope, in an interview with the Legislative Gazette. "The [Cuomo] administration is more concerned with the prisoners' rights than the safety of the corrections officers."
Mid-Orange Correctional Facility which is located in Warwick, in Bonacic's district, was closed by Gov. Cuomo in 2011.
"The closure of four correctional facilities has caused 'double-bunking' to occur in a cell in some prisons, and overcrowding in general at the other prisons. This creates a more stressful and hostile environment," Bonacic said.
On the other hand, Assemblyman
Daniel O'Donnell, chair of Committee on Correction, told The Legislative Gazette there is no evidence that indicates Cuomo's administration concerned prisoners' rights more than the safety of the correction officers.
"That's ridiculous. I have no evidence … for them to draw this conclusion," said O'Donnell, D-Manhattan. "I don't believe there is any differentiation between this governor and previous governors that we had about how they view that. The conditions that we keep people in should meet the standards of the United Nations and I hope the Republicans would support that idea."
O'Donnell sponsors a bill A.01346 that would make New York prisons compliable with international human rights standards by adopting recommendations from the United Nations Committee Against Torture regarding the use of solitary confinement in American prisons.
"I have visited 23 prisons. I can tell you that solitary confinement is overused in New York prisons. We need to change the way we use solitary," O'Donnell said. "Following the Committee Against Torture's report, it is all the more clear that the reforms contained within these bills are vital and urgent.
"New York's prisons should be places of rehabilitation, not counterproductive punishment. The bill will contribute to that goal by making solitary confinement a true measure of last resort and banning its use for particularly vulnerable inmates who are under 21, pregnant, or mentally ill," O'Donnell added.
In July 2014, the New York City Bar Association accused the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision of placing many of its residents in isolated confinement. In November 2014, the United Nations Committee Against Torture particularly mentioned New York as one of the six states which has a high rate of inmate deaths, resulting from extreme heat exposure while imprisoned in unbearably hot and poor ventilated prison facilities.
In addition, the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement claimed all states within the United States are currently engaging in systematic torture of prisoners through the use of solitary confinement.
"I disagree with the contention that there is systematic torture," Little said. "For prisoners who pose a persistent and high level of danger to other inmates and officers, solitary confinement is the best means of assuring others of their safety. It has to be an option."
Sens. DeFrancisco and Little told The Legislative Gazette use of solitary confinement is an option that can be utilized by correction officers against violence operated by gang members in the state prisons.
"Corrections officers need an option to remove a violent prisoner from the general population as long as the isolation is humane, it is a needed option," DeFrancisco said.
There are as many as 50,000 gang members in New York, according to a report released by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's office, based on 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment. United Blood Nation is a prison gang formed in 1993 within the New York City jail system on Rikers Island's George Mochen Detention Center. Also, Trinitario was established in 1989 within the New York state prison system. Trinitario is a Hispanic organization formed in prison, providing protection and unity for Hispanic inmates within DOCCS prisons.
"Gang members in our prisons are clearly having an impact on the level of violence we are seeing at many facilities," Gallivan said. "I believe the best solution is to make sure that the officers are properly trained and adequately equipped to deal with violent inmates."
The senator said he is not aware of any form of torture by DOCCS. Gallivan has recently sponsored two bills, S.435 and S.436, in the Senate which would codify restrictions regarding the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates, those with developmental disabilities and for inmates under the age of 18.
"In two separate 2014 court cases, the department agreed to greatly restrict the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates, those with developmental disabilities and for inmates under the age of 18," Gallivan said.
In February 2014, DOCCS agreed to an interim stipulation with the New York Civil Liberties Union and their incarcerated person clients in a potential class-action lawsuit about the use of solitary in the state prisons. Key components of the stipulation include creating alternative disciplinary units with some additional out-of-cell time for 16 and 17 year olds and people with developmental disabilities; establishing a presumption against solitary confinement of pregnant women; and calling upon experts to offer recommendations for more comprehensive reforms.
"Disciplinary practices in New York's prisons are more humane, more fair and progressive, and maintain safety and security," responded the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to the Legislative Gazette inquiry. "In addition, we continue to negotiate in good faith with the New York Civil Liberties Union on other potential changes beyond those we have already agreed to. Also, to the best of our knowledge, the United Nations Report about deaths resulting from extreme heat exposure was not about the New York state prison system."
Bill S.435, sponsored by Gallivan in the Senate, provides that where the department of corrections knows that an inmate is pregnant; there shall be a presumption against placement in segregated confinement or other restricted confinement unless there are exceptional circumstances which would create an unacceptable risk to the safety and security of other inmates or staff. In addition, bill S.436 provides out-of-cell programming for adolescents.
Also, bill A01347, sponsored by
Nily Rozic in the Assembly, would exclude pregnant prisoners from solitary confinement in New York correctional facilities.
"Knowing that excessive periods of isolation can lead to emotional, physical and psychological harm, we must continue to build on recent efforts to ban the use of solitary confinement as punishment," said Rozic, D-Fresh Meadows, who is a member of Assembly Committee on Correction.
"Now that we have passed these bills through committee, we are another step closer to reforming New York's correctional facilities and creating an environment that focuses on rehabilitation and safe re-entry," Rozic said.
Ultimately, legislators and those who lobby for the rights of prisoners as well as the safety of corrections officers say they are fighting for the same goal: safer prisons.
"Inmates and everyone who works in our prison system have a right to a safe environment," Gallivan said.