NY Corrections Officer Strike Reveals Repression and Violence Against Prisoners’ Rights Movement

Opinion | Peter Cherry

It was announced by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) state corrections commissioner in a memo on February 20th that restrictions on solitary confinement have been lifted and visitation to inmates has been suspended in the midst of several uprisings happening in prisons statewide in the aftermath of Robert Brooks’ death. This is occurring as strikes by corrections officers took place in response to state authorities reluctantly seeking to reign them in as a response to this mass sentiment.

Daniel Martuscello III, the state corrections commissioner, said in this memo that to control the situation inside the facilities he was canceling “specific elements” of the Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solidarity Confinement, known as HALT. His memo, titled “Path to Restoring Workforce,” did not cite which parts of the law were being paused. The repealing of HALT as a response to the guards’ demands is an attack on a concession won by the prisoners’ movement.

The monopoly media has been focused on the state corrections officers going on “wildcat strikes” at 41 of the state’s 42 prisons, ignoring why the officers have gone on strike in the first place. The demands of the correction officers are around “safety,” staffing, and to repeal HALT. A New York judge on February 26 ordered the officers to end their strikes, just as Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard to take on the repressive role the civilian corrections officers usually maintain.

3,500 troops were sent to the prisons affected by the prisoner uprisings and co-occurring correction officers’ strikes. Gov Hochul remarked that the troops were “ready to stabilize the situation,” as Spectrum News reported images of armed soldiers entering Attica Correctional Facility—the same prison that had the historical 1971 Attica Uprising.

On March 6, New York officials announced a proposal to end the strikes on the following primary terms:

• All strikers must return to work by March 7 to not face punishment.
• Any strikers that were fired are re-hired.
• Health insurance re-establishment for all those who had it terminated.
• Continuation of suspension of the HALT act for 90 days.

On Monday (3/10), DOCCS Commissioner Dan Martuscello announced that the strikes had ended, with over 2,000 being fired and barred from civil service jobs for continuing to strike after March 7. About 75% of corrections officers have chosen to return to their job.

Since February, seven prisoners in New York have died. The most recent one is Messiah Nantwi, who, on March 1, was beaten to death by corrections officers at Mid-State Correctional Facility.

The correctional officer’s strike came just as criminal charges had been announced against some of the officers whom state officials have implicated in the murder of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility outside of Utica. The attack, which was captured on the officers’ body worn cameras, showed officers torturing Brooks, punching, kicking and violently grabbing him as he is shackled and handcuffed.

Before the charges were announced, “disturbances” were announced at several facilities:

• On February 12, an uprising at Collins Correctional Facility near Buffalo, NY led to inmates taking control of three pods. The facility was put on lockdown and at least three correctional officers were reported as injured.
• On February 17, Elmira Correctional Facility officers said there were “recent violent incidents” that prevented them from working.
• On February 19, an uprising occurred at Riverview Correctional Facility, in which it was reported prisoners took control of multiple pods for several hours. The next day Martuscello announced the new restrictions.

Though this crisis was not caused by prisoners, the correctional officers and their unions have manufactured one in a deliberate attempt to compel the governor to sabotage the reforms that were supposedly designed to protect prisoners from administrative abuse. There is precedent for this in the past—in 2013 New York City corrections officers stopped working the day an inmate was supposed to testify about a video taping of guards beating an inmate. The announcement by the state commissioner that it is suspending provisions of HALT and collectively punishing prisoners is evidence of collusion by the Democratic governor with the correction officers unions that support the Republicans, and how demands won by the masses are barely held unless they are fought for.

Already the restrictions have been impacting the prisoners. According to the New York Focus, inmates have shared that they are seeing delays in getting life sustaining medications and receiving emergency care. In Bedford Hills correctional facility for women, one prisoner was nearly successful at her suicide attempt, barely surviving. One prisoner told The Auburn Citizen that they haven’t received treatment for a dangerous infection they have. This siege of inmates by the State in their own cells, along with the correction officers’ strike, is an obvious attempt at preserving the violent prison system and the immunity that correction officers enjoy for the regular torture and harassment they are able to carry out on inmates.

The US incarcerates 1.9 million people, with 530 out of every 100,000 behind bars. Black people in this country are incarcerated at 5 times the rate as white people, and Latino people at 1.3 times the rate. While correction officers complain about “safety,” prisoners have to deal with overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, solitary confinement and psychological torture, medical neglect, forced labor and routine violence, with upwards of 4,500 prisoners dying yearly. This rate of incarceration has not changed any crime rates, and in fact the call to arrest more and expand funding for prisons and their officers happens as the ruling class extends its tentacles to destroy the rights and guarantees of the worker, the quantity and quality of jobs available and the quality of public services to the population.

Photo: Marcy Correctional Facility in Marcy, NY. Credit: Jayu via Wikicommons.

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