Eighteen months after the end of a three-week illegal correction officer strike that rocked New York\u2019s prison system and exacerbated a massive staffing crisis, new data shows the number of officers employed by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision remains essentially stagnant.<\/p>\n
The strike resulted in thousands of National Guard troops being deployed to state prisons under Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. Their presence continues as DOCCS works to rebuild its workforce, and the state says<\/p>\n
DOCCS officials have repeatedly stressed that an aggressive recruitment campaign has resulted in more people graduating from the academy and additional interest in correction officer positions. But new data shows the number of officers employed by DOCCS is essentially stagnant compared with this time last year, six months after the strike and, in fact, represents a slight decrease.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people we talk to in these facilities who are working there don\u2019t see help coming fast enough,\u201d said Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, the state\u2019s designated independent prison oversight organization.<\/p>\n
Monthly reports released by DOCCS show 14,334 correction officers, sergeants and lieutenants were employed by the department in September 2024, months before the strike began the following February. That dropped to 11,319 one year ago, six months after a deal between the officers and state officials brought thousands back to work. In September 2026, that number has now dropped further to 11,113.<\/p>\n
Scaife says DOCCS\u2019 recruiting successes are apparently being outweighed by retention challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears that through whether it\u2019s retirements, resignations, people leaving the service to find other employment they are unable to keep up with the attrition,\u201d Scaife said.<\/p>\n
DOCCS told Spectrum News 1 in a statement that the relative lack of change represents stabilization as the state\u2019s \u201cRecover, Recruit, and Rebuild\u201d campaign continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to Governor Hochul, who provided critical funding for retention bonuses, pay differentials for college degrees, and sign-on bonuses, attrition has successfully stabilized. Because maintaining low attrition is critical to increasing overall staffing numbers, these stabilization efforts have paired with intensive, targeted recruitment to produce strong results.\u201d<\/p>\n
But state officials acknowledge that approximately 3,000 National Guard troops remain in 32 DOCCS facilities at taxpayer expense. That expense totaled more than $500 million in this year\u2019s budget and $1 billion total so far.<\/p>\n
In March, one year after the National Guard was mobilized during the strike, Commissioner Dan Martuscello told Spectrum News 1 that 2,700 troops remain in state facilities. DOCCS has said repeatedly that drawdown will take place as recruitment efforts continue and ranks increase.<\/p>\n
Scaife stressed that relying on the National Guard is not sustainable given the wide breadth of tasks within state facilities that can only be performed by a trained officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a substitute and I don\u2019t think anybody we talk to would say that it is, but we also hear superintendents say we couldn\u2019t run this facility without the National Guard,\u201d she said. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a one-to-one comparison between a correction officer and a National Guard soldier. They are not authorized or empowered to do the same job as a correctional officer can do, but they can fill in gaps.\u201c<\/p>\n
State Sen. Dan Stec, a Republican whose district contains DOCCS facilities, implored the state to do more to address the working conditions that caused the strike in the first place, including the state\u2019s HALT solitary confinement law.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the legislation and you look at the policies, very little has been done to address the core issues. Don\u2019t take my word for it, go talk to people in corrections,\u201d Stec said. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t taking these jobs because they\u2019re still unsafe, they\u2019re still understaffed, they\u2019re still catering to the criminal rather than the safety of the men and women that work there.<\/p>\n
Scaife, meanwhile, argued that a wholesale reimagining of the state\u2019s facilities is in order.<\/p>\n
\u201cModernizing the place so people have access to the outside world, staff included, changing the physical environment so it\u2019s not as oppressively hot in the summer, so it\u2019s not as depressing and crumbling and decrepit,\u201d Scaife said.<\/p>\n
The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which represents correction officers, also blasted DOCCS Wednesday for moving to expand holiday visitation effective Labor Day. The union called the move a slap in the face to correction officers who it says are still unable to staff facilities without mandated overtime.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Hochul echoed DOCCS in touting recruitment efforts since the strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Hochul has made it clear that the safety of all New Yorkers \u2014 including correctional staff and incarcerated individuals \u2014 remains a top priority,\u201d the governor\u2019s office said. \u201c Following last year\u2019s illegal work stoppage and in response to the nationwide staffing crisis of corrections officers, Governor Hochul has made unprecedented investments in recruitment and retention to support staffing, and she remains committed to will continue working with DOCCS to improve conditions for staff, reduce violence and make DOCCS facilities safer for all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eighteen months after the end of a three-week illegal correction officer strike that rocked New York\u2019s prison system…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[116,295,9,24,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,87,200],"class_list":["post-342329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","tag-jack-arpey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}