The New York state Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) in a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul Monday declared that the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) is in a full-scale “systemic emergency” following a surge in violence, contraband, staff assaults and deaths inside prisons, among other issues.
The letter highlights several recent incidents, where:
Three correction officers and two National Guard members at Mohawk Correctional Facility were hospitalized after exposure to an unknown substance found on papers brought into the facility by a visitor
Eight officers were injured in a six-day span across five separate incidents at Clinton Correctional facility, including assaults by apparently intoxicated incarcerated individuals and large-scale disturbances involving dozens of participants and recovered weapons
Officers were attacked by a convicted murder with a broken pen at Coxsackie Correctional Facility, injuring responding staff
A counselor and an officer were brutally assaulted in a classroom setting at Lakeview Shock Incarceration
An incarcerated individual murdered his bunkmate at Upstate Correctional Facility
“This is not normal. These are not routine disciplinary issues. They are unmistakable warning signs of a correctional system under extreme pressure — one that is becoming increasingly unstable and dangerous for everyone who lives and works behind the walls,” the NYSCOPBA executive board wrote in the letter.
NYSCOPBA urged Hochul and the state Legislature to advocate for amendments to the state’s HALT Act that were recommended by a special committee that studied the law as a result of the correction officer strike last year. The HALT Act originally went into effect in 2022, and aims to reduce the use of solitary confinement in prisons. Repealing or making major changes to the law was a primary demand from those on strike at prisons across the state in 2025.
“We also call on you to work with lawmakers to strengthen New York’s contraband laws with stronger penalties for smuggling drugs, weapons and toxic materials into correctional facilities — whether through visitors, mail, packages, or coordinated external deliveries,” the letter reads.
NYSCOPBA also urges an end to housing two individuals in a single cell, which the organization says significantly increases the risk of assaults and fatalities while making it more difficult for staff to maintain order.
“The safety of the men and women who work in our state prisons — and the stability of the entire correctional system — now rests on your leadership. We implore you to use the full weight of your office to ensure these critical reforms are passed swiftly. We stand ready to meet with you or your staff at your earliest convenience to provide any additional information or support you may require,” the letter reads.
In response, Hochul told reporters Monday in Buffalo that the state’s prisons still don’t have the staff numbers she wants to have in there.
“Our prison system is complicated challenging place. Lay on top of that an unprecedented illegal strike that brought the system to its knees when thousands of people who took an oath of office to protect the incarcerated population — and by extension their communities — walked of the jobs, I’m still paying for that,” Hochul said. “We’re spending an enormous amount of money to backfill the people who left their jobs.”
Hochul also said there are programs and learning initiatives envisioned under the HALT Act that can’t be implemented until the prison system becomes fully staffed.
“I’m not satisfied with the conditions within our prisons, I will say that right now, and our corrections officers do some of the hardest work in our entire state and I respect them,” Hochul said. “I just feel bad for the ones who are left behind because they were abandoned by others who made those who stayed their jobs much harder.”