Wildcat prison guard strike has local impact

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility

By JEFF MORRIS

A wildcat strike by prison guards across New York state that began Feb. 17 has spread to more than 30 prisons.

No work stoppages had yet been reported at the two women’s prisons in Bedford, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and Taconic Correctional Facility. 

The strike was not officially sanctioned by the corrections officers union. Gov. Kathy Hochul had declared the strike illegal and deployed some 6,500 National Guard troops to fill staffing gaps, including in Bedford.

However, according to Sharon Griest Ballen, who is chair of Bedford’s Prison Relations Advisory Committee, though staff at the local prisons may not actually be on strike, her conversations with prison administrators indicate some staff may have called in sick. Local administrators told The Recorder they were not permitted to discuss the situation and referred questions to the main public relations contact at the Department of Corrections and Community Services, who was only able to provide a general statement. The statement said that Monday — the first day of mediation with DOCCS, the NYS Office of Employee Relations, and the corrections officer PBA — “went well, with both sides engaging constructively and putting forth their main points and the goals they hope to accomplish through this process,” with mediation set to continue. “We remain focused on the safety and security of all our staff from security to medical and civilian, with the national guard continuing to assist our staff in the correctional facilities, the incarcerated population and the communities that surround our facilities,” said the statement.  

At any rate, precautionary measures that were put in place due to insufficient staff are uniform across the prison system — so no visitors are allowed, and programs have been put on hold. “The Rec staff is trying to provide games, library books, etc.,” said Ballen. “The women are allowed to be out on their unit and watch television. Yet, the lack of programs and visitors will start to wear on the incarcerated, as they lose structure and time with loved ones. The toll that takes on people is traumatic.”

Despite these restrictions, efforts are being made to keep some programs going. Ballen noted that Aileen Baumgartner, director of the Bedford Hills College Program, which works with Marymount Manhattan College, has managed to deliver written assignments to the facility. Ballen shared a message she received from the daughter of an incarcerated person: “Today everyone received homework packets from Aileen,” it said. “Everyone is happy they have something to do because they were bored. She believes that is the only way everyone will keep sane. Mommy herself is fine, she is doing homework now.”

Baumgartner said she was able to arrange this with the cooperation of both the Correctional Facility administration and the Marymount Manhattan College administration. 

“Right now, I think it is a miracle that sets a good example of what can be done when people work together for the greater good of all concerned,” she said.

The roots of the labor dispute appear to go back years, with those on strike complaining of inadequate staffing and facing increased violence. “The officers in the correctional facility, because of DOCCS having to operate with a lack of adequate staffing, have been working exhausting and unhealthy hours,” said Ballen. “Double shifts — 16 hours — have become normal. Triple shifts — 24 hours straight — are not uncommon.” 

Ballen said she is aware DOCCS has worked extensively over the years to recruit staff, including offering higher salaries, better benefits, regional positions, and even being allowed to recruit potential officers from neighboring states, rather than following restrictions on public employees only being New York state residents. “And those are only the efforts of which I am aware,” she said. “The reality is that if there are no, or not enough, applicants, DOCCS cannot make people magically appear. It is extremely frustrating to try to hire when there are not enough applicants.” Ballen said PRAC has worked for years with the DOCCS administration “to try to help in any way we can to publicize job openings.”

“This is a very complicated issue, where no one wins and everyone is right, from their perspective,” said Ballen. “The ones who suffer the most, as is often the case, are the incarcerated. In this case, everyone suffers.”

On Tuesday, state Assemblymembers Chris Burdick and Dana Levenberg, members of the Assembly’s standing committee on corrections, released a joint statement regarding the ongoing strikes.

“It has long been apparent to us that this system is in need of reform,” they said, “and this need is even more obvious now.” 

They said as part of budget negotiations, they will look for ways the state can support the recruitment and retention of “officers who are committed to the DOCCS mission of creating safe and secure facilities.” The state must, they said, also support the use and expansion of technology, such as body-worn cameras and digitized record-keeping, “to ensure we have reliable information about what is happening inside of prisons and accountability for everyone inside of DOCCS facilities.” 

Burdick, whose district includes the Bedford Hills and Taconic facilities, and Levenberg, whose district includes Sing Sing, also said they thought the system could be relieved of “unnecessary strain by passing legislation that will enable people who do not need to be in prison to return home to their families.” They said New York lags behind other states in areas like earned time toward release, and that such legislation could help save up to $522 million annually, which could be reinvested in DOCCS staff and facilities as well as other priorities. 

“The goal of improving working conditions for corrections officers is not in conflict with the goals of improved oversight and accountability,” said the assemblymembers. “A system in which officers feel free to beat a handcuffed infirmary patient to death is a system that cannot ensure safety for anyone, including officers, due to the levels of fear, distrust and despair that such brutality creates.” The reference was to the December beating death of Robert Brooks, who had been incarcerated at the state’s Marcy Correctional Facility. Nine corrections officers were indicted on various charges, including five who were indicted for murder.

The Marshall Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system, reported that some critics of the state prison system say the timing of the labor strike isn’t coincidental. It quoted a former prisoner who now works at the Center for Community Alternatives as saying, “It is intended to deflect attention from a moment of reckoning for New York’s violent prison system and culture of impunity.” Others have tied the job action to continuing violent incidents and inadequate staffing in prisons. Pamela Welch, executive treasurer of the corrections union, which does not sanction the strike, told Spectrum News, “They’re tired of going into work every single day, being unsafe and being treated worse than the inmates, and they’ve reached their boiling point.”

Many corrections officers have placed blame for increased violence on the 2021 HALT Act, which limits solitary confinement in state prisons. In a phone conversation from Albany, Burdick told The Recorder he does not think the blame is justified. “HALT does not prohibit the use of solitary, as some are claiming,” said Burdick. “It limits its use to a maximum of 15 consecutive days, or 20 days in a 30-day period. It limits the use of solitary for those under 21, or 55 and over. And it requires determination of whether a mental evaluation is needed.” He said the act had been put in place because there was excessive use of solitary, and UN standards said excessive use was torture. “I’m hearing from corrections officers saying, ‘I can’t use solitary,’” said Burdick. “That’s not what the law states.” 

Why, then, is there a gap between what is actually in the law and how it is being interpreted? Burdick rejected the idea that it is not clear. “It went through the wringer, as all state legislation does,” he said. “It was scrutinized.” He felt more education was needed about what the law does and does not permit.

On Aug. 5, 2024, the office of the New York State Inspector General issued a report reviewing the first two years of HALT. “Aside from issues relating to recordkeeping, OIG also identified a number of areas where DOCCS remains short of full compliance with the provisions of HALT,” said the report. “Additionally, OIG identified clear ambiguities in the HALT Act in defining special populations exempt from segregated confinement. This lack of clarity is, and will remain, the source of significant complaints absent legislative clarification.”

Ballen said she had heard from some incarcerated women who did not like HALT, saying it made them feel less safe. The reason, though, appears to be that same misinterpretation of what the law says. The Recorder spoke with Pamela, a former resident of both Bedford Hills and Taconic Correctional institutions. Though she was released in 2018, she is still in touch with currently incarcerated women, and said they tell her solitary confinement is no longer being used at all. The problem, she said, is that the practice was being abused before, and now things have swung completely in the other direction. “There needs to be a balance,” she said.

“I was incarcerated when they were still putting people on 24-hour-a-day lockdown,” said Pamela. “When they were able to, they were abusing that authority — and then they completely took it away.” She said she knew someone who was in isolation for seven years, and someone who was in isolation for 15 years. “It seems like, there were some officers who decided, if they weren’t able to use isolation however they wanted, they were not going to use it at all.”

One thing Pamela confirmed was that the staffing shortage has been around for a very long time. “When I was in, in 2016, I heard guards complaining that they just finished their shift and were being held on for another shift,” she said. “They were working 16-hour days back then. I know there were guards I saw all the time. There never seemed to be as many as they claimed were working there.”

Said Ballen, “DOCCS suffers from being maligned for being accused of not hiring enough staff to fill all the jobs required in a correctional facility. I have read reports of officers accusing DOCCS of choosing to only staff facilities at 70 percent capacity. That is simply not true. The superintendents of the facilities have, as their most basic duty, to keep the incarcerated in their care safe. They must have a certain number of staff per incarcerated individual; hence, the need for people to work more than one shift. The superintendents have no choice but to require staff to stay, although they are well aware of what they are asking.”

It is perfectly understandable that the officers are frustrated, said Ballen. “They are exhausted, they do not see their families enough, they do not always know when they start a shift, when they will get off shift.”

She said state Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello has been transparent and honest with PRAC about the shortages and their causes; that he started out as a correction officer himself, and is deeply empathic and concerned for the officers and their well-being.

“None of them deserves criticism,” said Ballen. “They do deserve our support during this stressful and difficult time. It is easy to criticize; it is much harder to find solutions and help. Let us, as a community, help in whatever way we can. We then have a chance of everyone winning, everyone benefitting.”