Silver Lake Daily Newsletter.com

Employees Get Voluntary transfer or Priority Employment:
NY slates Six prisons for closure, Hochul follows up on Cuomo plan

The head of the union representing the state’s 18,000 corrections officers met with state Department of Correction and Community Supervision leaders Monday morning and received an update about expected prison closures. Union representatives said the department will close six facilities in the coming months, including:

The head of the union representing the state’s 18,000 corrections officers met with state Department of Correction and Community Supervision leaders Monday morning and received an update about expected prison closures. Union representatives said the department will close six facilities in the coming months, including:

The head of the union representing the state’s 18,000 corrections officers met with state Department of Correction and Community Supervision leaders Monday morning and received an update about expected prison closures. Union representatives said the department will close six facilities in the coming months, including:

Rochester Correctional in Monroe County and Willard Drug Treatment Campus in Seneca County. Other facilities expected to be closed include Downstate Correctional in Fishkill, Ogdensburg Correctional in St. Lawrence County, Southport Correctional in Pine City, and Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in Mineville, Essex County.

New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association President Michael Powers met with acting DOCCS Commissioner Anthony Antonucci and his staff at about 10:30 a.m. Department officials called Powers on Sunday night to inform him about the late Monday morning meeting.

Language in the Legislature’s adopted 2021-22 state budget permits the governor to permanently close facilities with a 90-day notice through the end of March 2022, meaning the closures must be announced by Dec. 31.

Gov. Hochul recently confirmed she will follow former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plans and announce the closure of multiple facilities this year.

“What I found is that there are many facilities, particularly upstate, that are only half full,” she said Oct. 27. “We will be looking at a scaling-down initiative.” Fourteen of the 20 state prisons and correction facilities closed over the last decade, have taken place upstate, or north of Dutchess County. Among the closures was Livingston Correctional Facility in Sonyea in 2019.

The department will offer impacted employees voluntary transfer or priority employment at other facilities and state agencies following a closure, and does not anticipate related layoffs, Mailey said Thursday.

The total incarcerated population in state correctional facilities is 31, 501 people as of Thursday, including a reduction of more than 12,700 people since Jan. 1, 2020 and the lowest incarcerated population since 1984. The population has declined 56% since the department high in 1999.