Latest news with #DOCCS
New York Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
NY prisons' staffing woes helped drive overtime spending up to massive $445M: report
ALBANY – Understaffing in New York's beleaguered state prisons helped drive the state's massive overtime spending to the tune of $445 million — even before Gov. Kathy Hochul canned thousands more corrections officers amid an illegal strike earlier this year. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision was the worst offender across state agencies in 2024, notching a nearly 21% increase in overtime costs compared to the year prior, according to a new report from the New York comptroller's office. State agencies overall continued to ramp up overtime spending last year by an eye-watering 10%, or nearly $1.3 billion, from 2023, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's report found. The DOCCS, the state's Office for People With Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Mental Health together accounted for roughly two-thirds of the overtime shelled out in 2024. And that was even prior to a massive illegal strike earlier this year that saw roughly 2,000 corrections officers canned, and a massive increase in spending. The state corrections department spent $445 million on overtime in 2024, per a report from the state comptroller's office. REUTERS 'Since 2023, the Corrections workforce has decreased by over 1,000. These combined factors indicate that a smaller pool of Corrections employees are working substantially more overtime hours to meet operational demands,' DiNapoli's report reads. A spokesman for the agency said the 2024 overtime spike 'was driven by the ongoing staffing crisis and the need to maintain the safety of staff and the incarcerated, while continuing to offer mandated programs, as well as other essential activities and services within DOCCS correctional facilities.' Hochul's budget office estimates the cost of running the prisons post-strike could reach upwards of $100 million per month as the system is still suffering from being massively short-staffed. That estimate includes overtime for corrections officers as well as the cost of backfilling understaffed facilities with national guard troops and other impacts. 'It's no surprise to see this,' state Sen. George Borello (Chautauqua) told The Post. 'The dangerous conditions created by pro-criminal laws passed by Democrats in state legislature combined with inept leadership of Gov. Hochul comes and a big cost. Not just dollars but in morale and public safety,' Borello said. After the DOCCS, the agencies with the largest overtime costs last year were the state police, the Department of Transportation and the State University of New York. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's report found that the state increased overtime spending around 3.7% in 2024, at the same time the state workforce has grown. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images The state's massive state workforce overall increased by about 5,300 workers in 2024 – a 3.7% growth rate from the year prior per the report. 'Overtime continued to grow in 2024 despite increases to a workforce that remains below pre-pandemic staffing levels,' DiNapoli wrote in a statement. 'New York needs to continue to attract and retain a range of diverse employees, and agencies need to ensure the use of overtime hours is justified and services are delivered safely and effectively for residents,' he said.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Yahoo
NY prisons must comply with law limiting solitary confinement, judge says
NEW YORK — A state judge in Albany granted a temporary injunction forcing New York State to fully implement a law sharply limiting solitary confinement in the prisons after elements of the law were suspended following the 22-day prison guards strike earlier this year, court records show. Judge Daniel Lynch ruled the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision could not invoke emergency provisions to suspend the so-called HALT Solitary Confinement Act and keep inmates in their cells more than 17 hours a days or suspend programming and recreation in the prisons. 'The court understands the defendants' concerns regarding DOCCS staffing and the resulting safety risks,' Lynch wrote. 'However HALT is a duly enacted law and the people have a strong interest in seeing the implementation of laws enacted by their elected representatives.' Lynch set July 11 as the date the order would become effective, in order to give prison officials time to adjust, he wrote. 'The department is reviewing the decision,' DOCCS spokesman Thomas Mailey said. The initial class action lawsuit, Alfonso Smalls vs. DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello, was filed by the Legal Aid Society on April 17 after Martuscello ordered elements of HALT suspended Feb. 20 due to the strike. When the prison guards strike ended on March 10, Gov. Kathy Hochul fired roughly 2,000 officers who had refused to return to work — increasing an already existing staffing gap. But the law's suspension meant that inmates were being kept in their cells longer than the law allows, isolated and deprived of basic services, the lawsuit alleged. Smalls, the lawsuit alleges, was isolated in his cell for 22 to 24 hours a day from Feb. 20 through at least April 17, when the suit was filed. During the prison guards' strike, he was locked in 24 hours a day, allowed to leave only for three 8-minute showers, the society said. After the strike ended, Smalls was allowed to leave his cell for just 90 minutes to one hour and 45 minutes a day. 'We are grateful that the court recognized the grave harm caused by DOCCS's unlawful suspension of the HALT Solitary Law and acted to stop it,' said Antony Gemmell, supervising attorney with the Prisoners' Rights Project at The Legal Aid Society. 'This decision reaffirms that no agency — regardless of political pressure — can unilaterally disregard laws enacted to protect human rights,' he said. 'HALT was passed to end the torture of prolonged solitary confinement, and this injunction is a critical step toward ensuring the state honors that commitment and upholds the dignity of those in its custody.'
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Yahoo
NY prisons must comply with law limiting solitary confinement, judge says
NEW YORK — A state judge in Albany granted a temporary injunction forcing New York State to fully implement a law sharply limiting solitary confinement in the prisons after elements of the law were suspended following the 22-day prison guards strike earlier this year, court records show. Judge Daniel Lynch ruled the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision could not invoke emergency provisions to suspend the so-called HALT Solitary Confinement Act and keep inmates in their cells more than 17 hours a days or suspend programming and recreation in the prisons. 'The court understands the defendants' concerns regarding DOCCS staffing and the resulting safety risks,' Lynch wrote. 'However HALT is a duly enacted law and the people have a strong interest in seeing the implementation of laws enacted by their elected representatives.' Lynch set July 11 as the date the order would become effective, in order to give prison officials time to adjust, he wrote. 'The department is reviewing the decision,' DOCCS spokesman Thomas Mailey said. The initial class action lawsuit, Alfonso Smalls vs. DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello, was filed by the Legal Aid Society on April 17 after Martuscello ordered elements of HALT suspended Feb. 20 due to the strike. When the prison guards strike ended on March 10, Gov. Kathy Hochul fired roughly 2,000 officers who had refused to return to work — increasing an already existing staffing gap. But the law's suspension meant that inmates were being kept in their cells longer than the law allows, isolated and deprived of basic services, the lawsuit alleged. Smalls, the lawsuit alleges, was isolated in his cell for 22 to 24 hours a day from Feb. 20 through at least April 17, when the suit was filed. During the prison guards' strike, he was locked in 24 hours a day, allowed to leave only for three 8-minute showers, the society said. After the strike ended, Smalls was allowed to leave his cell for just 90 minutes to one hour and 45 minutes a day. 'We are grateful that the court recognized the grave harm caused by DOCCS's unlawful suspension of the HALT Solitary Law and acted to stop it,' said Antony Gemmell, supervising attorney with the Prisoners' Rights Project at The Legal Aid Society. 'This decision reaffirms that no agency — regardless of political pressure — can unilaterally disregard laws enacted to protect human rights,' he said. 'HALT was passed to end the torture of prolonged solitary confinement, and this injunction is a critical step toward ensuring the state honors that commitment and upholds the dignity of those in its custody.'
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State lawmakers will vote on prison reform package in last days of session
Jun. 10—ALBANY — State lawmakers will consider, and most likely pass, a legislative package meant to overhaul parts of the state prisons and county jails — the culmination of months of debate in the face of serious problems in the state corrections system. On Monday afternoon, one bill with language from 10 smaller pieces of legislation was drawn up and introduced in the Senate and Assembly. In about 20 pages, it lays out new rules regarding body cameras, death notifications for incarcerated people, autopsy reports for people who die in state custody, expands and gives more power to the state oversight committee and the independent prison monitor, and extends the statute of limitations to sue the state for emotional or physical injury that resulted from negligence in state or county facilities. The packages were introduced as a result of negotiations among the Democratic majorities in both the state Assembly and Senate — those negotiations resulted in this deal which both majority conferences have agreed to vote to pass. Altogether, the package would require the release of video footage related to the death of an incarcerated person involving security staff to the Attorney General's Office of Special Investigations within 72 hours in most cases; empower the Attorney General to address conflicts of interest within that office to limit instances where the AG has to appoint a special prosecutor; require the installation of a fixed-camera surveillance system in all state prisons and local jails, requires that when someone dies in prison that DOCCS report the death publicly and inform the next of kin within 24 hours; expands the state Commission on Corrections; orders a study on deaths in the prison system to develop a plan to reduce those deaths; requires quarterly reports from the DOCCS special investigations office; mandates more information including x-rays and photographs be included in autopsy reports done on people who die in prison; and permits that the independent Correctional Association of New York can access public records without submitting a FOIL request and can tour a prison with only 24 hours notice. The package doesn't include everything that lawmakers have been considering for reform this year. Some more progressive lawmakers had advanced a larger package, which they called the Robert Brooks Blueprint for Justice Reform — named after the man who was killed by corrections officers in a brutal attack, caught on body cameras, in December. The Brooks package included 22 bills that would have addressed many aspects of the state prisons, expanding the Department of Corrections power to discipline its security staff, creating an ombudsman's office for the prisons, requiring both professional and security staff to intervene in incidents of violence, as well as expanding parole, good behavior time credits, medical care and rights for incarcerated people and specifically pregnant people in jails and prisons, among other bills. The package introduced Monday doesn't include the bills to address parole or earned time, it doesn't address medical care in the prisons or expand rehabilitative programming or alternative court programs. Some lawmakers aren't satisfied with the lack of parole or good-time reforms in this package, arguing that the state prisons have gotten significant attention and are in a serious crisis now and that lawmakers should have used that attention and clear problem to make more significant reforms. But others acknowledged that changing the entrenched practices of the corrections system will take time. Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, D-Brooklyn, is a leading sponsor for one bill in the package, the bill to add more members to the state Commission on Corrections. Gallagher's bill, carried by Senator Julia Salazar, D-Brooklyn, would add six members to the existing three that sit on the SCOC, three appointed by the Senate and three appointed by the Assembly, coupled with the existing three members appointed by the Governor. Gallagher said that she hopes, with a larger SCOC and more specific requirements that members of the commission represent backgrounds in psychiatry, social work, corrections or have experience as an incarcerated person, the oversight group will take a more active role in reforming and holding the state prisons accountable. Gallagher and other lawmakers have criticized the SCOC for failing to effectively operate for years now — the group hasn't held a public meeting longer than 14 minutes in at least three years. Despite the ongoing staffing crisis in the state prisons, the two high-profile murders of incarcerated people by COs within the last year, and the estimated 70-plus other deaths of incarcerated people just this year, the SCOC has not held a public meeting longer than 3 minutes this year. On Tuesday, Gallagher and a group of supporters rallied in support of her bill and the omnibus prison reform package — acknowledging that it's a step along the way to what they want, and not the full package. "The package as a whole will increase oversight and provide an essential layer of protection, accountability and transparency," Gallagher said. "It's not enough, but it's certainly a first step. It is an essential first step if we are to meaningfully move the needle for our incarcerated community members." The state Legislature has just a few days to advance this package if it's to pass this year; the Senate will leave town on Thursday, not scheduled to return until January, while the Assembly will leave town for the year on June 17. It's not clear what the Governor's position on the bill is either, as she doesn't comment on legislation before it's delivered to her desk for final approval. If the package passes the legislature, Hochul can choose to sign it as-is, veto it entirely or make significant amendments for the legislature to review next year.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Several former NYS correction officers sue state, DOCCS claiming wrongful termination
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Several former New York State correction officers are suing the state and the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to get their jobs back. DOCCS started firing employees in March after the multi-week strike took place at facilities statewide, with correction officers asking for safer working conditions, limits to overtime, and a reversal of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act. DOCCS says strike is over, more than 2K fired According to a complaint filed on Friday, over a dozen former correction officers are suing the state, claiming they were wrongfully terminated while they were off the job under the Family Medical Leave Act. The suit calls for monetary damages and the reinstatement of employment and health benefits. DOCCS said it does not comment on pending litigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
