Collins, N.Y. (WBEN) - "Working in a New York State Correctional Facility currently, we all saw this coming. And honestly, this is a very small [indicator] of what's coming, because of how horrible this state government has been treating correctional officers, correctional staff in general."
A lockdown at the Collins Correctional Facility on Wednesday in Southern Erie County triggered a wave of current and former corrections officers in Western New York flooding the phone lines of WBEN, who voiced their concerns and frustrations over the present conditions experienced in several state-run prisons.
The correctional facility in the Town of Collins went into lockdown for several hours on Wednesday after inmates took over one of the dorming blocks at the state prison.
This incident prompted a call for the Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT) to be on site, while the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) Commissioner, Daniel Martuscello III, also responded to the scene on Wednesday.
According to Western Region vice president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), Kenny Gold, three corrections officers suffered minor injuries when the initial takeover happened at the facility.
Related
Many of the corrections officers who called WBEN on Wednesday know what transpired in Collins is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to underlying issues in state-run facilities.
"These men and women behind the walls, keeping our community safe each and every day, walk into work with this level of stress day-in and day-out. There's no relief coming for us," said one local CO Jeff, who called in to Tom Bauerle. "We're hemorrhaging 200-to-300 staff per-month. We have less than 100 trainees currently in the training academy to come in. We're getting mandated 16 hours, 18 hours, 24 hours. At what point in time do I get the opportunity to go home and put my daughter to bed? Make it to a gymnastics meet? Make it to dance class?"
"I retired 18 years ago, and when I did retire, we did have control at that time. And then after that, the officers I've talked to throughout the years, they hated the job, they hate going in every day. The cameras, every place, there's no privacy. It's horrible working now," said Ken, a former CO of 40 years in the state correctional system. "The conditions, the staffing, the hours they have to work, mandatory hours, it's horrible. It's a nightmare working now."
Some of the major issues at facilities across New York State include chronic understaffing, as well as plummeting morale among correctional officers.
However, the policy at the center of criticism from not just corrections officers in New York, but also locally elected officials is the HALT (Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement) Act, which:
- Restricts the use of segregated confinement and creates alternative therapeutic and rehabilitative confinement options;
- Limits the length of time a person may be in segregated confinement;
- Excludes certain persons from being placed in segregated confinement.
The goal of the bill was to make New York's prison and jail practices more humane. Instead, many claim it is allowing criminals inside correctional facilities to commit violent actions against corrections officers or other inmates with minimal accountability.
Related
"When the state government wants to put all these different restrictions upon correctional staff, even police officers to where you can't do your job like you used to be able to do, not in terms of anything harmful to any individual, but there is no holding people accountable. You can't hold inmates accountable. You can't sit there and even put them in a time out anymore. It's absolutely ridiculous," said one anonymous CO with WBEN.
"The No. 1 job responsibility that we have: Care, custody and control. The very first word is care. I have to care each and every time I walk into this place, not just for the people alongside me, but for those that are incarcerated," Jeff added. "I have a duty and an obligation to act when they're having a mental health breakdown and faking hanging up, and we have to enter a cell just for them to assault us, because it was a diversion, a ploy, just to carry out an assault on staff. What's the penalty for that? For 14 days, they have to move 200-to-300 yards away to a different spot in the facility, and I have to, then, on the very next round, walk by and hand them a tablet that they can watch movies and call their family on."
Corrections officers are hopeful that officials in Albany can repeal the HALT Act, because they can see first-hand that the bill is not working.
"Even if she doesn't want to repeal the whole thing, which, from the sounds of it, they don't want that to happen, all the extreme left, even just take some of it back, because these programs are not working. They may work for 2% of the population they are treating," said an anonymous CO with Bauerle.
Meanwhile, officials like Gold have been warning those in Albany who supported the HALT Act of its unintended consequences for staff inside correctional facilities.
"We've screamed from the rooftops. Folks have pleaded and begged with the governor, the legislature, the commissioner, to listen to us, that something was going to happen, because their failed policies, pandering to the convicts, have put them to such an emboldened state, to such a state that think that they can do whatever they want," said Gold during an appearance on WBEN. "Like the previous administrator had said, there's no fear of repercussions. There is no cold, dank cell that you see in the movies. These guys get more things than every general population inmate that doesn't do anything wrong."
What frustrates Gold the most with the HALT Act is the law allows inmates to act out in violence against corrections officers and other incarcerated individuals, only for those guilty inmates to point the finger back at the staff members of the prison.
"The policies that have been created in New York State have made it easier for them to get in trouble. That's what they want to do. They get more when they're in trouble, and then they turn around and they always blame the officers. It's always the officers' fault," Gold said. "We didn't create this, your failed policies created this. And a day like today, it can encapsulate even more what is going on in everything that we've said leading up to this."
New York State Sen. George Borrello (R) is also fed up with the HALT Act and its impact on the corrections system in the state. He's pointing the finger at Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democrats of Albany for continuing to allow such a policy to continue.
"The prison abolitionist movement is driving all these insane laws, these pro-criminal laws. They truly believe that rapists, murderers, pedophiles, that they all should be on the streets, that there is alternatives to incarceration. That is the most outrageous part of it, because this rhetoric, this dangerous rhetoric, combined with the laws that they have passed, have created situations like we're seeing Collins right now," said Sen. Borrello with David Bellavia on WBEN.
Borrello further feels the decisions made by State Democrats in Albany are geared more towards fulfilling their political agendas, rather than doing what's best for public safety, and the safety of COs in the state prison system.
"They consider them not criminals, not people that have committed heinous crimes against the law-abiding citizens of New York State, they consider them political prisoners, because that's what Democrats in Albany call them: Political prisoners," Borrello said.