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Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How Prison Guards Used An Illegal Strike To Fight Reform
A three-weeklong wildcat strike by thousands of New York state correctional officers across more than 40 prisons ended earlier this month, during which time 12 incarcerated people died, and many more struggled from weeks of being deprived of adequate food, medical care, time out of their cell, and access to their lawyers and loved ones. Striking prison guards cited staffing shortages, mandatory overtime and dangerous working conditions as their reasons for walking off the job. But the strike was also the result of a years-long effort by correctional officers to overturn a state law limiting the use of solitary confinement in New York state prisons and jails. Passed in 2021 and implemented the following year, the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act (HALT), capped the number of consecutive days a person could be kept in solitary confinement to 15 days— after which point the United Nations considers it a form of torture. HALT also banned solitary for people with disabilities. The bill was passed in recognition of overwhelming evidence of the harmful physical and mental health effects of solitary confinement. But shortly after it passed, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), the union that represents prison guards, sued state officials in an effort to repeal HALT, claiming the reform bill violated their constitutional rights by putting them at risk of injury or death. 'The harm to life and limb of Correction Officers and Correction Sergeants that has been and will continue to occur constitutes irreparable harm and shocks the contemporary conscience,' they alleged in a complaint. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2022 as 'speculative,' but the correctional officers union vowed to keep fighting to overturn the law. Starting in mid-February, approximately 15,000correctional officers at nearly every New York state prison walked off their jobs. The strike was unsanctioned by the union and violated a state ban on public employees striking. Still, the union succeeded in one of their long-held goals. Earlier this month, the strike ended with state officials agreeing to, among other provisions, suspending parts of HALT for 90 days and agreeing to form a committee to recommend changes to the law. 'The strike was clearly a frontal assault on HALT and its protections,' Antony Gemmell, a supervising attorney for the Prisoners' Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, told HuffPost. It was unlikely New York state lawmakers would repeal HALT, James Miller, NYSCOPBA's director of public relations said in an interview, 'so at least getting some temporary amendments to limit how it's implemented is a success.' Throughout the strike, lawyers at the Legal Aid Society received hundreds of calls from their clients, describing a 'flood of human desperation,' Kayla Simpson, a staff attorney at Legal Aid's Prisoners' Rights Project said. 'It's hard to imagine as people who haven't been incarcerated what it's like to depend on people for your basic needs — and then to have those people walk away.' 'This is not an acceptable way to meet labor demands. People died, far more have suffered,' Simpson said. 'We wouldn't accept these conditions for animals.' Simpson and her colleagues compiled some of the accounts shared by Legal Aid clients into a report released on Friday, which documents the human cost of the illegal strike. Legal Aid did not disclose the identities of those quoted in the report because of fears of retaliation, and HuffPost could not independently confirm their accounts. Multiple people told Legal Aid that their facilities had shut down 'sick call,' leaving them unable to get medical care. One person incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility told Legal Aid he was unable to get supplies to clean and dress chronic ulcers related to a blood clot in his leg, causing his leg to swell and the wound to produce foul-smelling pus. Another person at Attica, who has epilepsy, reported being ignored after reporting symptoms that typically lead to a seizure. A third person at Attica, who had open-heart surgery in 2020 and has atrial fibrillation, said their weekly medical visits stopped during the strike. 'I haven't gotten the medications I'm supposed to have in two weeks. I have one I can administer to myself, but I'm running out so I'm rationing it and it is not good. I don't know what I'm going to do,' a person incarcerated at Marcy Correctional Facility said. 'I also am supposed to have physical therapy to help me relearn to walk, but that's deemed 'non-essential' so it's canceled.' An individual at Five Points Correctional Facility told Legal Aid they experienced seizures and COVID symptoms during the strike but still couldn't get medical care. 'They're playing with our lives in here,' the person said. 'The other day I must have been laying there for 20-30 minutes and no one saw me. I woke up in a lot of pain, and no one even realized anything was happening until I yelled out after the fact. When I told a nurse about it, she told me to yell louder next time.' Nicole Whitaker, the deputy director of public information at New York's Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said in an email, 'The Department remains focused on keeping everyone inside the correctional facilities safe and secure, as well as providing essential services including but not limited to meals, showers, telephones, commissary and delivery of packages, along with medical and mental health care, including medication.' Allegations of mistreatment have been referred to the Office of Special Investigations, she wrote. 'There were 12 incarcerated individual deaths during the strike, as compared to 13 deaths in the same period last year,' Whitaker wrote. Even after the strike ended earlier this month,incarcerated people told Legal Aid attorneys that they continued to experience neglectful conditions and hostility from returning officers. Several said they feared being injured or even killed by guards, citing the murder of Robert Brooks, who was fatally beaten by correctional officers in December at the prison in Marcy. One person incarcerated at Mid-State Correctional Facility told Legal Aid he overheard a correction officer who had recently returned to work say he wanted to 'kill all the inmates and that we all deserved to die because of our criminal history,' according to the report. 'Whatever the COs are going through, they're taking their anger out on us and bringing it back to us,' another person, who is incarcerated at Coxsackle Correctional Facility, told Legal Aid. 'I understand that most of us made wrong turns in life, but I want to go home. I don't want to get killed in here. I have kids and family to get home to, and a lot of us are starting to feel like our lives are in real danger here.' Asked about these fears, Whitaker wrote, 'While the strike has ended, we are not out of the crisis. Each facility is developing a gradual re-opening plan. In terms of the allegations, those that have been reported by an incarcerated individual claiming mistreatment have been referred to OSI for further investigation.' Although DOCCS tracks assaults by incarcerated people against staff, it does not publicly share statistics about staff assaults against the incarcerated. DOCCS data does show an increase in assaults on staff after HALT went into effect, although the overwhelming majority are described as resulting in 'no injury.' The department considers actions by prisoners like throwing a 'small object' at a staffer to be a form of assault. Last year, the Legal Aid Society, Disability Rights Advocates, and Winston & Strawn LLP filed a class action lawsuit against DOCCS, accusing the department of violating HALT by holding people with disabilities in solitary confinement. DOCCS declined to comment on the pending litigation. 'DOCCS has never complied with HALT from the beginning,' said Gemmell, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the suit. 'A huge part of what HALT intended to do is take people who would otherwise be placed in extended segregated confinement and offer them rehabilitation and therapy. That is not happening.' 'You can't look at HALT and say it's a failure when the reality is DOCCS has never given HALT a real chance to work,' said Gemmell. Prisons Said It Was COVID Isolation. The Incarcerated Describe Torture. Bodycam Video Shows New York Correctional Officers Pummeling Handcuffed Man In Fatal Beating Over 122K People Are Experiencing Solitary Confinement On Any Day: Report
New York Times
24-02-2025
- New York Times
Inmate Dies at N.Y. Prison as Corrections Officers' Strike Continues
An inmate at a New York State prison was pronounced dead on Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell, state officials said. The inmate, Jonathan Grant, 61, was found on Saturday morning at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, just west of Syracuse, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Security and medical workers at the prison and a member of the National Guard tried to revive him but were unsuccessful, said Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the corrections department. The cause of Mr. Grant's death is under investigation. He had been unwell, according to two prisoners at Auburn and another person who reviewed information about Mr. Grant's health. That person said Mr. Grant had had several strokes: At least five were documented, including at least one in the past few weeks. The two prisoners said Mr. Grant had asked for medical help days earlier but had been brushed off. The corrections department did not respond to questions about Mr. Grant's health before his death. Mr. Grant entered custody in 2011 and was serving a sentence of 34 to 40 years for first-degree rape and burglary, Mr. Mailey said. His death comes amid mounting tension and public scrutiny of the state's prison system. Corrections officers at dozens of facilities, including Auburn, have continued wildcat strikes for days — without their union's authorization and in defiance of a judge's order — to protest what they say are dangerous working conditions, severe staffing shortages and forced overtime. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, deployed National Guard soldiers to act as replacement workers. The strikes, the first widespread work stoppage in New York's prisons since a 16-day walkout by officers in 1979, are also playing out just weeks after officers at another state prison fatally beat a 43-year-old inmate, Robert Brooks. Ten officers have been criminally charged in connection with the killing, six of them with murder. Some prisoners' rights advocates have accused the striking officers of trying to distract attention from their colleagues' role in Mr. Brooks's death. Even as the cause of Mr. Grant's death remains unknown, advocates of prison safety say that the strikes are creating hazardous conditions for inmates and warn that more deaths may occur if the labor dispute is not quickly resolved. 'We are hearing from clients across the state that they are not receiving critical medical care,' said Antony Gemmell, supervising lawyer for the Prisoners' Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society. 'If these strikes continue, I think it's a question not of if we will see more deaths, but when.' Likewise, the Correctional Association of New York, the nonprofit designated by state law to provide independent prison oversight, blamed the union for creating the circumstances that led to Mr. Grant's not receiving medical attention. 'There's just bound to be medical crises that get missed during this — it happens already,' Jennifer Scaife, the association's executive director, said. 'It's very scary to just imagine being in that situation and there's no one there to come to your assistance.' The correction officers' union declined to comment on Sunday. The state has scrambled to quell the labor dispute. Last week, the state corrections commissioner suspended enforcement of parts of a state law that places limits on solitary confinement — a move the Prisoners' Rights Project calls unlawful and dangerous to inmates. Many corrections officers have said that the law has made their jobs more dangerous and difficult and have called for its repeal. In a statement on Sunday, the governor's office called on the striking officers to return to work, saying that they were 'jeopardizing the safety of their colleagues, the incarcerated population, and causing undue fear for the residents in the surrounding communities.' The strike has continued even though a state judge in Erie County issued a temporary restraining order last week requiring striking officers to return to work immediately. He has given the officers until Tuesday to show why the strikes are proper. At the maximum-security prison where Mr. Grant died, corrections officers had been on strike for several days. Prisoners there told The New York Times on Sunday that National Guard soldiers had stepped in to do security rounds, often accompanied by one corrections officer. Around 10 p.m. on Friday, the prisoners said, two National Guard members and a corrections officer conducted a security check in the unit to make sure all of the prisoners were accounted for. But one prisoner, Mr. Grant, did not respond, according to a prisoner whose cell is near Mr. Grant's. During a 7 a.m. check the next day, Mr. Grant was again unresponsive, the prisoner said. After attempts to revive him failed, Mr. Grant was pronounced dead at 8:32 a.m.
New York Times
20-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
N.Y. Prisons Loosen Solitary Confinement Rules as Wildcat Strikes Spread
Restrictions on solitary confinement in New York State prisons were suspended Thursday and visits were canceled as corrections officers continued wildcat strikes despite a judge's order. The walkouts had spread to 41 of the state's 42 prisons by Thursday afternoon. News cameras captured images of National Guard troops descending in helicopters and Humvees to replace corrections officers, who say they are protesting forced overtime and dangerous conditions. Daniel Martuscello III, the state corrections commissioner, said in a memo that to control the situation inside the facilities he was canceling 'specific elements' of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, known as HALT. His memo, titled 'Path to Restoring Workforce,' did not cite which parts of the law were being paused. 'We are suspending the elements of HALT that cannot safely be operationalized under a prison-wide state of emergency until we can safety operate the prisons,' he wrote. He said that the law, signed by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in 2021, allowed suspensions under 'exceptional circumstances' when there is 'a significant and unreasonable risk to the safety and security of other incarcerated persons, staff or the facility.' The move alarmed groups that support inmates' rights, whose members also learned on Thursday that officials at the state corrections department had canceled visits at all prisons 'until further notice.' Inmates have complained that they are locked in their cells, with some unable to get food or medicine, said Antony Gemmell, supervising attorney for the Prisoners' Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society. 'It's obviously endangering our clients in really serious ways,' he said. Mr. Gemmell said prison officials had no authority to suspend parts of the law. 'There were exceptions, very limited exceptions created,' he said. 'But it's not acceptable for the commissioner to just say, 'Well, we're just suspending indeterminate provisions of HALT for indeterminate reasons.'' Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the corrections department, said the department was 'focused on keeping everyone inside the correctional facilities safe and secure, as well as providing essential services including food and medicine.' Gov. Kathy Hochul has deployed 4,500 National Guard troops to staff the prisons. On Thursday, Maggie Halley, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Ms. Hochul 'supports Commissioner Martuscello's efforts to return striking correction officers back to work.' 'Our administration will continue doing everything in our power to keep correctional facilities safe for all who enter, and is continually working to ensure our correction officers receive the pay and working conditions they deserve,' Ms. Halley said. The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which represents guards, did not sanction the strikes, which are the first widespread work stoppage in New York's prisons since a 16-day walkout in 1979. On Tuesday, a New York judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring officers to return to work immediately. At 4 p.m. Thursday, the union released a letter from a lawyer who had agreed to convene union and prison officials for three days of discussions starting next Tuesday. 'This mediation process can help the parties open a constructive dialogue,' wrote the lawyer, Martin F. Scheinman. The walkouts come as the correctional system faces scrutiny after officers at an upstate prison were charged with murder in the beating death of a 43-year-old inmate — and as guards' anger at management has grown. The Times Union of Albany reported this month that the union had issued a vote of 'no confidence' in Mr. Martuscello, who last week told superintendents that the department would have to get by with 70 percent of its work force because of persistent staff shortages. The wildcat strikes began Monday when officers assigned to the Collins and Elmira lockups set up picket lines. The strikers, whose three-year contract runs through March 2026, refuse to accept the smaller work force as permanent. On Thursday, Mr. Martuscello rescinded his earlier memorandum. Another major point of contention is the HALT law, which limits stints in solitary to 15 consecutive days. The measure also bars solitary confinement for several groups, including minors and people with certain disabilities. But lawyers for inmates say the requirements have been routinely ignored. In May 2024 the Legal Aid Society and others filed a class-action lawsuit accusing prisons of holding mentally ill and disabled people in isolation, in violation of the law. The following month, a judge ordered the state to comply with the law's requirement that officials provide a justification for extended solitary confinement. Many corrections officers have said that HALT has made their jobs more dangerous and difficult and have called for its repeal. Supporters of the law said they believed that was the strikes' ultimate goal. 'This crisis was not caused by incarcerated people,' said Thomas Gant, an organizer at the Center for Community Alternatives. 'It was manufactured by a group of rogue corrections officers who abandoned their posts in a deliberate attempt to sabotage reforms designed to protect incarcerated people from abuse.'
