Changes recommended by that study<\/a> haven\u2019t been implemented.<\/p>\nWhile most guards returned, a gap remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am trying so hard to deal with the prison staffing shortage crisis, and it is a crisis,” Hochul said at an August press conference. \u201cI have launched a recruiting program, lowering the age for people to become corrections officers. We\u2019ve put more incentives out there, we\u2019ve changed pensions, we are doing a massive recruitment around the state.”<\/p>\n
Part of the problem is timing. The state\u2019s prison population peaked in the late nineties, so now many officers are hitting the 25-year mark when they can retire with a full pension. Along with the thousands of officers who were fired last year, nearly 800 officers retired, according to staffing records from the state.<\/p>\n
The number of new officers who graduated last year from the training academy is up more than 40%, but the state is struggling to retain those recruits. More than 660 were assigned to prisons, but by the end of the year, more than 250 had resigned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to work in the prison system; they don\u2019t want to work for Kathy Hochul,” Blakeman said.<\/p>\n
Blakeman said he would address the staffing crisis by hiring back the thousands of officers that Hochul fired and get rid of the HALT law. His stances earned him the endorsement of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which represents state prison guards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need help with staffing, officer safety, [limits on] mandatory overtime, compensation, benefits, and the future of corrections,\u201d NYSCOPBA President Chris Summers said. \u201cBruce, we need your help.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792468644_48_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Patricio Robayo<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
WJFF Radio Catskill<\/p>\n
People protest Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, outside of Woodbourne Correctional in Sullivan County. <\/p>\n
Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said the governor has invested in public safety and stands by her move to fire striking officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen correction officers broke the law, abandoned their posts and put their colleagues and surrounding communities at risk, Governor Hochul acted to restore order and hold them accountable,\u201d Radulovacki said.<\/p>\n
The effects of solitary confinement<\/p>\n
But advocates for prisoners say rolling back the HALT law would make conditions worse for everyone in prison and do nothing to solve the staffing crisis. Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist from the Prison Policy Initiative, said segregated confinement is akin to torture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWidespread solitary confinement worsens people\u2019s mental health. It isolates them from their families,” she said. “It makes it impossible for them to access programs that they might have been depending on for some kind of stability or improvement, and it ultimately just makes situations worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bertram believes the state should keep shrinking the prison system by closing facilities, condensing the inmate population, and releasing elderly inmates. She said she has sympathy for regions like the North Country that have relied on prisons to prop up rural economies, but said that is not a reason to keep people locked up.<\/p>\n
“I think it\u2019s very sad what\u2019s happening to a lot of towns, now that there are fewer people in prison, which, in and of itself, is a good thing,” said Bertram, “but the solution is not to go back to the days of extreme mass incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Livsey resigned as a corrections officer this spring and now drives a tractor-trailer.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, I\u2019m working more hours than I did with corrections,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m coming home every night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kellan Livsey still walks around with a photo on his phone of the day he became a New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-377589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377589","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=377589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"After](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792468644_547_.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n