From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made on February 17th, when corrections officers at three facilities across New York State went on strike.

The move by officers at Collins Correctional Facility, Elmira Correctional Facility, and Groveland Correctional Facility inspired about 15,000 officers at about 40 state prisons to join in protesting what they said were unsafe working conditions.

Officers protested for nearly a month before more than 2000 were fired for not returning to work, as reported by Capitol News Bureau reporter John Union for the New York State Public News Network.

The strike exacerbated staffing shortages in prisons and has ignited debate over the humane alternatives to long term solitary confinement act, known as the Halt act.

The act was signed into law in 2021 by Governor Andrew Cuomo, and reduces the amount of time that people who are incarcerated may spend in solitary confinement.

The goal, advocates say, is to prevent negative physical and mental health effects from solitary.

Lawmakers and advocates disagree about next steps for reform, from how to alleviate the staffing shortages to overtime and 24 hour shifts worked by corrections officers to the nuances of the Halt act.

There's a lot to explore.

Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed new reforms, and those ideas have been met with mixed reviews.

Some Republicans say that some of the ideas are dangerous for New York State.

This hour, we explore the state of prison reform in New York.

Let me welcome our guests now.

Jon Union is Capitol News bureau reporter for the New York Public News Network.

Welcome to the program.

Thanks for being with us, Jonathan.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Welcome as well to Michael Stamp.

Michael is a corrections officer who's going to be telling his story.

Michael, thanks for being with us.

Thank you, Mr. Dawson.

And Jennifer Skaife is with us.

Executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

Jennifer, thank you for making time for the program.

Sure.

Happy to be here.

Jon, you know, I'm just going to give you some space to take us through some of your reporting.

And there has been a lot in the last couple of months.

Take us back.

Take us back to how how this strike really began.

Sure.

The first day that we saw strikes was on February 17th.

Like you said, there were corrections officers in several facilities that walked off, including Collins and Erie County and Elmira Correctional Facility in Chemung County.

And there had been some dissatisfaction among corrections officers leading up to that date.

there were concerns about deteriorating work conditions and rising instances of abuse of inmate and inmate violence and an inmate on staff violence.

and then the other part of it was that there were a huge staffing shortage issues among the prison system across the state.

and because of those various issues, we saw folks at those corrections facilities walk off and February 17th, and that quickly spiraled to, facilities in more than two dozen other locations across the state, striking within the same week.

Okay.

And again, you mentioned some of the roots of this.

and different officers may have some varied reasons for this, but was there a singular reason that was driving this halt?

was it the halt act?

Was it different conditions?

Mostly, I guess safety, the overarching concern.

Sure.

Yeah.

And I think the one thing to caveat about all of this is that this wasn't, a sanctioned strike by the corrections officers union.

This was really the act of individual corrections officers joining each other in and going and walking off the line.

And so it's hard to really have a unified front in all of this.

But in terms of the general, you know, sentiments that I've heard in talking with officers, they were mostly concerned about public safety.

Yes.

safety conditions for themselves and safety conditions for incarcerated individuals as well.

But they did largely emphasize that, more and more, assaults on staff were occurring across, prison facilities.

And they felt that the work conditions were also not satisfactory, for them.

There were officers, corrections officers who work 24 hour shifts, sometimes even more, without proper compensation for overtime pay, according to their perspective.

And then.

So that's one category about public safety, about, work conditions.

The other big demand that corrections officers had was over this one piece of legislation called the Halt Act.

It prohibits the use of solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days.

And it also places a limit of, 20 days for an individual to be put in solitary confinement within a 60 day period.

This took effect in 2022, but ever since it kicked in, corrections officers have largely said that it doesn't help with, ensuring the safety of incarcerated individuals and with corrections officers because they see that they need to have solitary confinement to be able to separate what they describe as violent individuals from the rest of the prison population.

All right.

We'll talk to our other guests about that particular piece of legislation coming up here.

Now, in the reporting from John Yoon.

Listeners and readers of New York, you might see the term illegal strike.

And that term comes from, I think, John Yoo, in what you just described, the fact that these were thousands of officers who made the decision to strike on their own, independent of certification from their union.

So they were more vulnerable here, but they felt strongly enough to do it.

That's why the term illegal strike comes in.

Is that right?

Right.

The corrections officers union put out various statements throughout all of this and said that they don't they didn't condone the strike.

And this was actions that individuals, officers took, to to go and not show up to work.

Okay.

And so how long did the strike last and and what happens on the back end of it here.

Sure.

It's so it started on February 17th and it ended on March 10th.

So it lasted about three weeks.

And during that time, there were numerous attempts from the state to try to strike a deal, that was mediated by independent mediators.

And the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which oversees the prison system, were also involved in those talks.

And then so was the corrections officers union.

There were, there was one tentative deal that the state struck with the corrections union and with stocks, which is the prison system, but that didn't satisfy corrections officers.

demands that they felt that it didn't.

So the strike continued.

and then before the weekend before March 10th, there was a second deal that was struck, and the real test was to see if enough officers would return by that Monday.

and technically they did not.

The number of corrections officers didn't meet the threshold of the agreement, but the state still declared the strike is ended.

And now, as of this week and in recent days, we've seen the that second iteration of a deal, be the law of the land, essentially.

And that's the deal that the state is operating off of now.

Okay, the the National Guard, though, comes in because with 2000 officers out of work, you got holes to fill in the schedules, right?

Right, right.

Within the first week, Governor Kathy Hochul issued an executive order bringing in about 3500 National Guard.

At the time, this is all because keep in mind, even before the strike, the prison system was under understaffed.

They were short 2000 corrections officers even before the strike occurred.

And, then, at its peak, we saw nine out of ten corrections officers go off the line off the job.

and so because of that, the governor called in the National Guard, that number quickly went up from 3500 National Guard forces to more than 600 at its peak.

And so, where this goes next?

There's debate about a number of things that we're going to talk to Jennifer Scaife about.

We're going to get Michael Stamps ideas about these going forward here.

But but what's at the front of your reporting right now?

What questions still need to be answered?

John, you sure?

you know, by the end of this strike, the state fired 2000 officers because, they did not show up to work for ten consecutive days.

And so because of that, the, Department of Corrections decided to fire 2000 officers.

So essentially, now the the prison system is short for thousand corrections officers.

That's a huge number that we have.

The state will have to figure out how to recruit more folks to work in staff prison facilities.

we are hearing from individuals across the state that's still, working conditions and conditions in prisons are recovering.

all of this with the increased scrutiny that the state has given recent deaths of incarcerated individuals, including the saying on TV at one prison facility, and then Robert Brooks earlier, last year in December.

So there is a new spotlight and intensified spotlight on how the prison system will be able to keep, incarcerate individuals safe, how to keep corrections officers safe, and how to, you know, make sure that there are enough staff working prison systems in a way that also has a new culture, a new page for for the state prison system to be able to turn, given, the tumultuous nature of the strike and then, the controversies of the killings of these individuals.

So, we're going to bring in, Jennifer Scaife now, and John Union's going to stay with us here, whose work has been outstanding on these issues.

A number of reports, really comprehensive, trying to take a look at what's happening and a lot of different perspectives here.

Before I get Michael Stamp's full story, I just want Jennifer Scaife to tell us, if there's anything you think we're missing in terms of the landscape of what has happened in the last two months here, Jennifer.

You know, I think that, the reporting so far has been extremely comprehensive.

I think that I would add that, the announcement to release a number of individuals somewhat early, it has provided additional, fodder for discussion about, the future of the corrections system.

And then the governor's proposed, budget amendment to close up to five prisons in the coming fiscal year.

are other elements that I think have to be factored into the discussion of the future of the prison system and the overall shrinking footprint of not only the workforce and the incarcerated population, but also the number of facilities operating in New York State.

Jennifer, briefly here, two different proposals that you're talking about.

One of them, again, closing up to five prisons in New York state, the other on early release, as my colleague John Union reports, the state is saying, you know, if we do this, these are not violent offenders and not sex offenders.

These are people, who are incarcerated, who would be granted early release if they qualify in certain ways.

Here.

And that early release could alleviate some of, you know, some of the traffic and some of really the stress in a prison system.

There's a range of reactions to that proposal.

What do you think is the right one?

So a couple things.

First of all, I think that these are individuals who are due to be released within the next 110 days.

And so there's no, significant time off, of sentences that should meaningfully, impact public safety, particularly given the parameters that have been put in place by the department and the state.

I think that the fact that operations in prison facilities right now are so disrupted and have been for such a long time that the environment, of, of prison is even more chaotic and potentially, undermining of people's, ability to prepare for release that I think it's the most responsible thing to do for the state to say, look, let's get these folks home.

They're going home anyway, and let's let's send them on their way so that they can begin their transition.

and I think the, the, the other thing is to begin looking at what's next, right?

This is the numbers that I've seen.

And according to our very back of the envelope estimate, this is under 1000 people.

maybe closer to 700. so, so really not a significant dent in the overall population, which is about 32,500. and I think that there are plenty of people, who might fit into other categories of, of, of convictions, that, that they, received earlier on in their lives who should be considered eligible for release because there are many people who have already been to the parole board, for example, and have not been released.

And so they're eligible, per the amount of time that they were sentenced to, but they just haven't been found suitable by the board.

And so, there are certainly proposals in the legislature that seek to get at that larger population of people who served a very long time and, and accomplish a great number of things, during their incarceration.

Yeah.

And to Jennifer's point, we're talking to Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

when you hear that there are 2000 correctional officers who've been fired for, engaging in a strike that was not authorized by their union being off work for more than ten days.

So the state fires 2000 workers.

They're already short, 2000 workers.

There's 10,000 correctional officers, so they're short a lot of people.

I understand that the perception may be when the next proposal is, well, let's grant some early release.

The perception may be, boy, we just fired 2000 workers.

We're short prisons are clogged.

Let's just let people out to to ease some stress off.

What Jennifer is saying is that is not what's happening.

What's happening is, of course, they're staffing stress, but these are individuals.

We're not talking about violent sex offenders.

We're talking about people who are going to be released in the next 3 to 4 months anyway.

They've met the qualifications.

Allowing them to go back to their communities now might be good for everybody.

Now, that being said, here's what, Assembly member Michael Thomas is from Staten Island, told Young Union from Sky news.

He said, quote, the release of inmates before their sentence time is complete.

That is never the solution.

Putting the public at risk because the state is incompetent is never the proper solution to a problem.

End quote.

What do you think, Jennifer?

What do you make of that?

That comment.

You know, I'm just not sure that it, that it's grounded in evidence.

I think that it's more of a reactionary, talking point.

That reminds me of some of the things that, that, lawmakers have appointed to deal with, for, you know, this idea that holding people in jail or in prison actually keeps us safer.

And I think that there are there's lots of evidence, in fact, far more evidence that shows that, exposure to the criminal genic environment that jail and prison creates, produces can actually increase people's, chances of, of, re-offending.

And so I think that getting people out of these environments and into, jobs, into reentry programs that are ready to serve, people making sure that people are going home, and will be housed as the department is doing.

I think all of those things are the right thing, because the evidence is really on the side of showing that people do better when they're in the community and they're getting the support that they need.

and then the other thing I would just point out is that, you know, this is this is all, these actions are all currently allowed for in correction law section 73.

Right?

So this is this is not some x Mary measure that the state is taking, that is pushing the boundary, of the law.

these are frankly, actions that, could be taken at any time, not simply in response to a crisis.

So, I think that, avoiding the temptation to react, to the idea of some mass release of, of criminals that, you know, some people have have taken it, I think is, is the better way to approach this.

And just really, I think, as you said, these are folks who are coming home, people in prison, are our future neighbors.

and and so, the better response is to make sure that, that the state is fully funding during budget talks, reentry, services and transitional housing so that people, you know, when they come home can be successful.

let me ask my colleague Jeong Han has the response among lawmakers to these kinds of proposals, early release being an example?

Has it been mostly along party lines?

Jiang Yun, what we've heard so far, yes, I would say so.

the there's concern mostly among Republican lawmakers about the idea to release, individuals early.

Again, like Jennifer said, the estimate would be around 700.

That's also, according to the docs, Commissioner Daniel Marcello.

there are some other proposals that we just haven't heard yet, though, from, reaction in terms of Republican lawmakers about how they feel about it.

But there are some other ones on the on the table that the governor wants the, the legislature to consider.

One of them would be to lower the age of corrections officers from 21 to 18 years old.

I asked, about that proposal to the leader of the black Puerto Rican Hispanic Asian Caucus.

that's Assembly member Mikhail Salinas.

And she said that that's a really good idea because she said in her words that she trusts the next generation of individuals to be involved and in shaping how prisons can be overseen in the next, next chapter of, of New York.

And, there's also, some other talk among some Democratic lawmakers about ways to recruit corrections officers to that.

There's a more racially diverse workforce in the mix.

That's something that I, that I talked with Assembly member slash about.

She said, that's going to be really important to think about for the state, because having members of, of certain communities be involved in shaping cultures within prisons will help to make it a safer environment, both for corrections officers and for incarcerated individuals, too.

Well, let me bring in Michael Stamp, who's a corrections officer himself.

And, you know, I think right at the center of this kind of story with 2000 and fired corrections officers after they striked.

Mike, thank you, first of all, for making time for us.

You want to tell us a little bit about how long you've been working in this line of work and, and, what that work entailed for you?

I've been in I was in corrections, for over 17 years.

I've seen, many facets of corrections that seem to go through many stages.

what else needs?

Well, so 17 years and then leading up to February, tell me what life was like at work for you and why you decided to strike.

Well, life there in corrections is tough.

I mean, you're forcing people to work 12, 16, 24 hour shifts day after day.

No one seeing their family, they're getting burned out.

it's more dangerous inside the facilities and ever than it ever was.

And, people just getting emotionally and physically burned out.

So when you say it's more dangerous, tell us why it's more dangerous now.

Oh, because, the drugs, the alcohol are very rampant in New York state prisons.

I don't care what they tell you.

which we call it.

assault on staff, assaults on, other inmates has just gone through the roof in the last, what, like maybe six, seven years when I was in there.

It's just, you know, what?

It wouldn't.

It's.

It wasn't uncommon to get, like, 3 or 4 medical emergencies every day for, inmates passed out on drugs or, you know, or on something, and then they're attacking the officers or each other.

The Halt act in New York state means that a prisoner cannot be in solitary confinement for more than 15 days in a row, and can't be in solitary for more than 20 out of a 60 day span.

What did you make of that piece of legislation, Mike?

Oh, okay.

First of all, we have to address solitary confinement.

There's really no such thing as solitary confinement because they have a window in their door.

They talk to each other up and down the halls.

You can hear me.

And they got tablets where they could talk on their and talk on the tablets to their families, play video games, you know, we talk, and, what you would call it.

And mental health comes in every day to check on, make sure they're doing all right.

Medical staff comes in to check on them every day to make sure they're doing all right.

And the upper echelon, you know, like lieutenants and captains, they make rounds every day.

So there's really no such thing as as solitary confinement.

This isn't like the movies where someone just throws in all with no windows, one door, and it's darkness in there.

No, this is in the movies, okay?

And so do you feel that solitary, as constructed is the way I'm going to keep using the term solitary confinement.

I take your point about how you perceive it.

but do you feel that it's an important tool to improve safety?

Yes, it is, because, it separates the more violent, inmates from the rest of the population because some the most inmates just want to do their time and go home to the family in one piece.

And some people, you know, they don't care.

They're either doing life or they've got so many years and they're so and they're young, they don't care.

So violence, you know, comes naturally for them and stuff.

If we could get them out of, you know, the main, population into themselves, you know, maybe they could work on their behavior, you know, get some programs, you know, that they weren't taken advantage of out there in the population looking at some data, that my colleague John Union sends from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, assaults on staff in the year 2019 1043.

Assault on staff, assaults on staff five years later 2024 almost double 1938.

That's an 85% increase.

Assault on incarcerated people in 2019, about 1200 assaults on incarcerated people five years later, in 2024, more than doubled to nearly 2700.

That's a 112% increase.

So the numbers do seem to bear out the idea.

The prisons have seen a lot more violence inside their walls.

But, Mike, did you decide to strike because of the hall tacked on solitary, or was it something else?

the truth.

There's like a myriad of reasons.

there was the halt act, people are getting burned out, you know, having to work a lot of days and stuff, not seeing your family, always under the constant threat of, you know, being, you know, another shift of overtime.

Another shift of overtime being attacked by inmates.

I mean, I've been personally attacked a couple of times, and it's after a while, you know, it's it's starting to get where, you know, you get the feeling of PTSD, where, you know, you don't know, you know, the attack is coming.

You just don't know where and when.

And that after a while that really builds and, you know, on a person and stuff, you know, nobody goes to to work in corrections to get their butt beat.

They just we all they just want to, you know, provide for their family and hopefully help the inmates out as, you know, as they go, you know, providing, an example and helping them follow the rules.

and did you realize that you could get fired for striking Mike?

yes, I did, but you you know, there's a time when you just have to stand up and do the right thing.

No, I mean, I mean, nobody was helping.

The state certainly wasn't helping the situation out the union.

And, you know, nobody even knew where they went.

You know, you probably find them in the back of a milk carton, but, you know, they weren't helping the situation out either.

They were kind of, you know, turning turning a blind eye to it also.

So meanwhile it just kept getting worse and worse and nobody was doing anything about it.

Are you surprised that the governor, that the state, went with the decision to fire 2000 workers like yourself?

You know, I was because, you know, like I said, they're already down 4000 net.

And that's probably the low end on the estimates.

You know, people resign, people retire, and there's nobody in the academy.

You're lucky if you graduate 20 people.

And then of those 20 people that you've got, you're going to be lucky if they last a year on probation after, you know, they're down, stay away from their homes.

And they can't, you know, they can't do doubles because they're they keep, you know, getting hit for 16 and 24 hours shifts.

I mean, nobody signed up to be away from their family for, you know, weeks and months that end.

I mean, that's that's not right to ask of somebody to do.

So.

Mike, now, now that this has happened, there are some members of the state legislature calling for the state to rescind the firings to bring you back.

Do you want to go back to work?

What do you want to do?

Well, you know, I have mixed emotions about it because, you know, you actually you're going into something that's even worse than it was before we left the strike.

But I'm the same.

But, you know, at the same hand, which would call the governor, you know, won't let us get, unemployment, what you might call a can't get unemployment.

you know, she's not letting us be hired and stuff.

So, you know, the only the only ones helping my family out, are the local food pantry, and that's it.

And that's pretty sad.

So after we take our break, I want to let Jennifer Scaife respond to some of what she's heard from Michael Stamp.

Michael is a a corrections officer who went on strike and was fired recently.

He was one of 2000 in New York State who were fired for engaging in a strike that was not authorized by their union.

They were off the job for more than ten days, and the state decided to fire them.

And so it was part of, I kind of a demonstration among workers against some of what they see as unsafe working conditions, the rise in violence, the Halt act, part of that.

So we'll talk to Mike more on the other side of this break.

Jennifer Scaife, the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, and John Union, whose reporting is the basis for this hour, John is Capitol news bureau reporter for the New York Public News Network.

We are right back on connections.

Coming up in our second hour, my colleague Veronica Volk joins us to talk about her recent reporting on the state of Eagles.

Eagles are doing pretty well.

There is a popular local nest in Iran, Detroit, that's gotten the attention of photographers and onlookers.

But it wasn't always good times for Eagles.

There were only two eagles left in New York State just 50 years ago.

We're going to talk about how they've come back and what to do if they nest around you.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Ola, center, proud supporter of connections with Evan Dawson, believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Carrie ola.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

You've heard Michael Stamp talk about why he went on strike, why he knew he could get fired, but still felt like he had to do it.

His concern about safety.

Some of the stats seem to back that up.

I want to give you some time to respond to some of what you've heard there, and we'll have a conversation about it.

Go ahead.

Jennifer.

You know, I, I, left a prison monitoring visit, which is what my organization, the Correctional Association in New York, does.

We are an independent nonprofit that has authority under law to carry out oversight of the prisons.

And, and we we left the prison monitoring visit at Green Correctional Facility in mid-February.

You know.

So I was leaving.

I thought, you know, this is really a system that's kind of on the verge of something of some sort of crisis.

And and two days later, the strikes began.

and I had that feeling because we spoke with Correctional officers, in a meeting, with, with union representatives who were describing many of the same feelings of, of frustration, and fatigue and, and the effects of, of traumatic, violent incidents, as Michael described here today.

And, and then, you know, just just to kind of underscore, the working conditions working a lot from people working about 80 hours of overtime per pay period.

and, and with isolated incidents, people working triple shifts, so 24 hours in a row, I mean, these are really not healthy, levels of work.

And then the prison environment itself is, you know, an overtly negative environment.

It's just not a place that everyone really wants to be.

And so, so I think that many of the conditions that he's described and the feeling of that, that there was no end in sight, are things that are very consistent with what we have heard and documented among staff.

Go ahead.

Oh, okay.

Well, I appreciate that perspective.

And so then, you know, you're describing an overworked set of officers across the state.

You're describing a system that, you know, needs more hires.

I mean, I don't know a whole lot of people who would disagree with that.

maybe some debate on the numbers, but need more hires.

And there's a lot of violence in the system.

And so the state then after the strike decides, well, we're going to fire 2000 workers.

And I don't mean to lay that at your lap, Jennifer, but I mean, can you help us make sense of the decision for the state to fire 2000 workers?

If everyone acknowledges the conditions are tough, they're overworked, they're stressed, there is a lot of violence.

And, and the state needs more people, not less, working in these facilities.

Well, I think there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

First of all, as we heard at the beginning of the show, the strike was was not only unauthorized by the Union, but it but it was illegal and that it violated the Taylor Law.

and so I think that, you know, kind of a principled approach as well, these people were were striking in violation of the law.

they were being asked to do work that was, provided for in the collective bargaining agreement.

So mandatory overtime is part of what correctional officers sign up for.

when they, when they decide to become a CEO, and the state and the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, we did negotiate, for about three weeks to reach a deal that addressed, I think, many of the striking officers concerns.

And so I, you know, I, I support the decision to, have ways with 2000 officers who decided that, given what they were being offered, and given, you know, what they wanted for themselves professionally, that, that they decided to to, not come back to work and risk termination.

That said, I do believe that this presents an opportunity for New York State to begin to really rethinking what the purpose and the environment of prisons should be, because clearly, it's not working for incarcerated people, who we hear from, dozens of times a day, reporting their concerns to us about, the failures in basic operations and services.

and, and it's clear that staff are not happy working there, and it's not an attractive enough position for people to come to work.

And so I think that's where there's really an opportunity for the state to lead the nation, because this is not a New York only problem.

This is a national problem of changing expectations about what a, professional environment should be, what kind of place somebody wants to work and how they want to work.

and prisons clearly, are presenting an antiquated model, of both employment, but also, an antiquated model for, rehabilitation of of people who have been, disadvantaged from the beginning, and are in need of a great deal of services.

All right.

So let me just follow up that last point, and then I'm going to let Mike respond.

And then we're going to talk to you in a little bit about what, her reporting has yielded from, state senators and members of the Assembly who were not available to join us on today's program.

But we do expect on a future program to go a lot deeper on the Halt act, for example.

But briefly, Jennifer, here's a comment from a listener, who's watching the program on our YouTube channel on Sky news who says prison culture is a chicken and egg scenario?

Incarceration is not fundamentally designed to support rehabilitation.

It is to punish and quote.

Do you agree with that?

Jennifer?

Yes.

In short, I do agree with that.

And I think the department has an extraordinary number of programs that have done a great deal of good in people's lives.

And yet I think that overall, as I said earlier, the the environment overall is overtly negative.

people do experience, I think, as a whole prison as punishment, not an opportunity to improve their lives.

and I think that, it's an opportunity for, for New Yorkers, for state government to really rethink, what what should people expect, from people who are incarcerated, from people who work in prisons?

And what should we expect our taxpayer dollars to be supporting?

Because, frankly, prisons produce poor outcomes.

and and as we see there, they're environments that are, that are negative, violent, and produce a great deal of harm.

Okay.

Michael Stamp is a corrections officer who's been kind enough to join us to talk about his 17 year corrections officer career and his striking and firing that, recently happened.

And so, Mike, a couple things here.

Let me just start by asking if there's anything that you want to respond to that you heard from Jennifer.

She said that, you know, she understands that you are in a hard spot, that officers need more support, that it's not ideal.

But the actions of the striking officers ran afoul of the law that there was a bargain contract, that this is something that you sign up for, forced overtime, mandatory overtime, for example, and that that the firings were justified on those grounds.

What do you think, Mike?

Well, I have to, definitely disagree with her.

I mean, nobody signs up to do 24 hour shifts of overtime.

If you would have told me that when I was in line waiting to become a corrections officer, how to look at your hand and said, hey, have a nice day and took off to do something else because that's nuts.

And right now, you know, it's the, inside the prison.

It's even worse than it was before people went on strike.

The only thing that has change changed is instead of doing eight hours basic, now, you have to do 12.

That is the only thing that is changed.

It's still violent.

There's still rampant drugs.

what you might call it, it.

Yeah.

And nothing has changed.

I mean, they tell you, you know, she sits here and tells you all these good things.

No, that's not true at all.

I mean, it's it's just that's just a bold face on.

Okay.

So anybody anybody that's done work in there knows how bad is.

And these people who have done all these studies in the in charge of everything, they haven't done nothing to make it better.

They call our strike.

I call our strike illegal.

But is it really illegal if it's for safety because the state hasn't done anything, the union hasn't done anything to make the conditions better.

I mean, as long as they're not in it, what do they care?

You know, they go home to their family after eight hours and stuff and enjoy.

Meanwhile, some poor guy who's keeping the worst the worse is doing 24 hour shifts so he could crash his car on the way home.

And nobody cares.

He does.

He's not even covered by workman's comp.

But Mike, let me just make sure I understand part of what you're saying.

What Jennifer was saying was that yes, the conditions are tough, but the union that represents corrections officers bargained for the way your hours are set up and that nothing we're seeing runs afoul of that.

Which is why the union said we're not going to strike and didn't authorize it.

Are you saying that, for example, the 24 hour shifts, that kind of thing does run afoul of the agreement?

Yeah, my my dad always said everything before the word, but means nothing.

Which.

McCall?

Yeah.

24 hour shifts to me.

If you're going to do a 24 hour shift, that should be an extreme emergency, a riot fire, some mass casualty event, not standard operational procedure.

That's just wrong.

You show me it, you show me another.

Another, occupation out there.

Where?

Where you have to work 24 hour days, time after time again, and hardly any sleep in between.

And then you sometimes I've known a lot of officers.

I have to fight just to get the money for working the 24 hour shifts.

But double time and a half.

Well, I'll say, Mike, work that 24 hour shift.

You know, one example is airline pilots, airline pilots.

When there was a clearance crash back in 2009, we went 16 years between commercial crashes.

There was a lot of look looking at pilots schedules and everyone agreed, we don't want pilots working 16, 18, 20 hour shifts.

We want people fresh.

We don't want people sort of fatigued.

And and so, I mean, I understand the point that Michael is making Jennifer Skaife is is he wrong to say, though, that you know, that that is strike worthy, that that's grounds?

Or are you saying, Jennifer it may not be ideal, but it is part of the agreement that they bargained for.

You know, I think that, I think that what he's saying makes sense in that, yeah, it might be permitted by the agreement, but it but it's, it's not safe.

And so therefore we should be justified.

I can appreciate that.

But I also appreciate, you know, that, that the governor has to run a prison system, and has a responsibility to take into account multiple stakeholders, point of view.

And, and also has to run state facilities and so, so I think that, you know, in a, in an a situation, there's really not a great outcome, for anybody I, I stand by my earlier remarks that I think that the firing of 2000 officers was the right move.

And I also, want to double down on my, statement that the the nature of the job of correctional officers is not sustainable.

It needs to be changed.

It needs to be rethought.

And I think that that, requires a strong commitment from a variety of stakeholders to really think about what should these environments look like, who should be working in them, what other kinds of support staff are needed?

What is the overall size, the right size of the system?

What kinds of facilities are appropriate and safe facilities to how the people who have complex mental health, substance use needs and needs for education and, and vocational training, and then what are the needs of the staff who work in these very difficult environments?

And how can we best support all of these complex needs in a safe, smaller system that is really focused on improved outcomes for everyone?

So, I think, you know, now we just have to move forward with those goals.

and I think that there, there are a number of proposals out there.

And the governor has, has also established a future of prisons in New York State working Group that is tasked with defining, the these very objectives.

And we look forward to to working with a wide variety of stakeholders as part of that effort.

Mike Stamp, anything you want to add to that?

Yes.

what's McCulloch.

yeah.

When you've got, officers working 24 hour shifts day after day, and these officers have to make life and death decisions sometimes the state has these officers driving vans within Matson on to to hospitals.

Could you imagine being up 24 hours and having to drive a vehicle anywhere?

I mean, in the state the vehicle crashes, who gets blamed?

It's not the state.

It's going to be the officer.

And another thing is what she's talking about.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I, I, I defend it.

You know, I, I defend them firing people.

Yeah that's all fine.

Well because that's not you try now out there trying to feed your family and trying to find another job with, with, governor blacklisting you, not helping you with any, no.

Not even allowing you to get any unemployment.

So how are you supposed to feed your family and I can't even get my vacation time, which, by New York state law, is is supposed to be provided.

Me, I have to file a grievance and probably wait months to years to get this thing.

I mean, if anybody was, you know, leave a job, you get your vacation time.

I have to, you know, I have to fight for it just so I could try to feed my families and family.

And can I say one thing, Mr. Dawson?

Go ahead.

Mr. Dawson's my dad.

Go ahead.

Mike.

Oh, okay.

Well, what you would call it.

I'm not a conspiracy conspiracy theory, but, you know, if there is by any stretch of the imagination.

But, you know, you really gotta look at it.

I mean, the state created this.

What's what?

It's, you know, the violence inside the prison systems hasn't done anything to make it better, you know?

And all that's left for the, correctional officers to do is to go on strike because things aren't safe, and, what you may call it.

And then then she's going to close five prisons.

All right?

You know, she fired 2000 people out of five prison.

And now she wants to let inmates out, and they say, oh, yeah, they're not sexual predators.

Oh, yeah, that's fine and well, but there's a whole lot more crimes than just sex crimes.

There's violence and everything else.

You know, none of these people in there are in there for singing to loud in the church choir, and they know it, but they just keep doing it.

So it makes you wonder, really does, you know, it's if this whole thing wasn't planned and orchestrated, it's almost Machiavellian.

Well, and boy, turns out we needed two hours for this.

But Jennifer, to be fair, I want to.

I think it should be stressed that there is plenty of agreement that you and Mike stamp have in terms of what is not working inside prisons.

It sounds like you have a fundamentally different view of what prisons need to become in this state.

Jennifer.

That sounds like an accurate characterization, and I think that I would also just emphasize that I am taking a system view, and I think it might be taking a, you know, a view that that, comes from his own personal experience working in facilities and, and the challenges that she's now experiencing.

you know, at the end of this, of this difficult, challenging career.

And so, I think just different vantage points.

and certainly when, you know, when, when something happens to you, it feels different, even, you know, even if choices were made to lead to that outcome, but but absolutely.

I think that, the, the point stands that none of the conditions that you've described this hour, are, are, I think ideal.

and I also don't think that it's the vision of, of, of taxpayers and the workers that the people have to work or, or be incarcerated in these conditions.

And so, all the more reason for there to be a doubling down and the commitment to change the environment so that people, are attracted to, to an opportunity to help promote public safety, help change people's lives, which is, I think, what the job could be well designed and supported appropriately.

Well, I we will be talking in the near future, we hope, about the Halt act, which you know, which we've talked a little bit about this hour and you heard Mike stamp, who will be invited to come back and talk about his experience, understanding what solitary confinement means.

I appreciate that perspective.

we're going to talk about that in a future program, because we really want to bring in lawmakers, who are not available today to talk about it.

As my colleague Junghoon hyung has been saying, the Halt Act has sparked some political controversy.

You have a number of Republicans in the New York State Legislature are talking about it as a mistake.

You've got a number of people on the political left saying that maybe they're mischaracterizing.

I'm misunderstanding the point of it.

So we'll talk about that on a future program.

but, Jonathan, let me just give you a little space to tell us where you're going to take the reporting next year.

remind people what might be coming next in terms of questions to be answered and what you're looking at.

Sure.

And, you know, I think just hearing the comments from Jennifer Scaife and Mike stamp, the there is a big consensus among, you know, corrections advocates, criminal justice advocates, that the system of how prisons are conducted and overseen in New York needs some more review.

And the governor is going about that right now.

She has an outside external group doing a culture review that she, initiated ever since, the killing of Robert Brooks at Mercy Correctional Facility in December.

That group started its its mandate in February.

And I'm told by the governor's office that they are going to have, you know, a report with their insights and findings later this year.

So we'll have to see what comes from that and what steps they recommend to the corrections facilities across the state to take genuine, outstanding work on this, as always, and thank you for highlighting the work and providing the basis for an a very important conversation here.

We'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for having me.

Jung Eun Han, who is Capitol News Bureau reporter for the New York State Public News Network.

Michael Stamp, a corrections officer for 17 years, recently one of the 2000 fired by New York State.

Michael, thank you for sharing your perspective.

And again, as we talk about these related issues, I hope we can talk again soon.

Thank you, sir.

I appreciate your time.

And Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the National Association of New York.

Same, Jennifer, there's a lot to talk about here.

Thank you for making time for this program today.

Absolutely.

We got more connections coming up in just a moment.

And.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.org.