New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision is the department of the New York State government that administers the state prison and parole system, including 42 prisons funded by the state government.
New York State currently incarcerates approximately 32,600 people and supervises approximately 25,100 parolees at seven regional offices as of 2023. The department employs a staff of approximately 26,400 individuals as of March 2023, including approximately 15,200 uniformed correction officers. Its regulations are compiled in title 7 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. NYS DOCCS states that it is "responsible for the care, custody, and treatment" of the people held in the state prisons.
In response to falling crime rates and declining prison populations in New York State, the department has closed many facilities since 2009. Between 2011 and 2022 nearly 20 prisons were closed, with plans for additional facility closures based on the continued decline in the number of incarcerated individuals in the state.
On April 1, 2011, the New York State Division of Parole merged with the New York State Department of Correctional Services to form the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. As of 2016, New York, per state law, did not contract with private prison corporations.
History
The New York State prison system had its beginnings in 1797 with a single prison called Newgate located in New York City. A second state prison opened 20 years later in Auburn in 1817, and in 1825 a group of Auburn prisoners made the voyage across the Erie Canal and down the Hudson River to begin building Sing Sing in the village of Ossining, New York.Historians have not described the prison system of New York State in the 19th century in a favorable light - with employment positions being awarded based on the spoils system, employees being characterized as largely corrupt, and the use of prisoners to gain favorable manufacturing contracts.
The state commissioned architect Alfred Hopkins to design three major institutions built between 1933 and 1935: Wallkill Correctional Facility, Woodbourne Correctional Facility and Coxsackie Correctional Facility. All three were designed on progressive principles, reflected a concern for aesthetics and a sense of place, and had no surrounding walls or fences. That has changed.
Between its founding and the year 1973, New York had operated only 18 prisons. After the new focus on prison administration brought by the Attica Prison riot in September 1971, and a new influx of prisoners created by the new stricter Rockefeller Drug Laws starting in 1973, the corrections system was forced to expand dramatically. Corrections acquired a number of older state-owned properties from other agencies during the 1970s, some with expansive acreage and Edwardian structures, such as the Adirondack Correctional Facility in 1971 the Otisville Correctional Facility in 1976, and the Mount McGregor Correctional Facility in 1976.
The growth continued in another way through the 1980s. A huge prison construction initiative took the form of "cookie-cutter" facilities, fifteen different medium-security installations such as Washington Correctional Facility in 1985, built with the same blueprints, the same dorms and mess halls, as Franklin, Mohawk, Bare Hill, etc. Many of the 15 opened in 1988. Two of these, Riverview and Cape Vincent, were initially funded and owned by New York City to shuttle city prisoners by air, as a way to address the city's jail overpopulation crisis.
Demographics
Population size
The incarcerated population in New York State grew rapidly from the 1970's-1990's, in line with the pattern of mass incarceration across the United States. This trend reversed during the first two decades of the 21st century. From its peak in 1999 at nearly 73,000 individuals, the total state prison population declined by over 50 percent to 32,600 as of December 2023. Although the total prison population has declined in recent years, the proportion of prisoners over age 50 has increased greatly. Rapidly declining numbers of inmates have led to prison closures and pressure to consolidate further. In some rural communities, this has meant a significant loss of jobs. But the number of prison officers employed by the department has declined much more slowly than the number of incarcerated people in the state, by 17% since 1999 as compared to the 57% decline in incarcerated individuals through April 2021. For every officer employed by the state prison system, there were 1.7 incarcerated people as of 2021, far below the 1999 ratio of 3.3 to 1. By comparison, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons currently has an inmate-to-officer ratio of 7.5 to 1.Gender distribution
Men account for about 95% of people in New York State prisons. Of the forty-four total facilities, three are designated as women's prisons: Albion, Bedford Hills, and Taconic Correctional Facility. DOCCS does not publish statistics on gender diversity other than by facility designation as "male" and "female," so the proportion who are transgender or non-binary is not known. Reports required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, however, show that many prisons have small numbers of trans/nonbinary people among the population.Recently, NYS DOCCS has revised policies to reflect transgender and nonbinary people's gender identities. In January 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul directed the prison administrators to let transgender people choose to be housed in a men's or women's facility, and to give access to appropriate medical and mental health care. In 2019, DOCCS granted the first transfer for a transgender woman to move from a men's to a women's prison prior to gender-reassignment surgery. Since then, the departments states that it has granted "a number of gender-aligned placements... including transfers of transgender women from male to female facilities" and one transfer of "a transgender man from a female to a male facility." Incarcerated transgender people have access to clothing and sanitary supplies based on gender identity, and to request that pat frisks be conducted by an officer of the gender that individual prefers, regardless of the gender designation of the prison.
Race/ethnicity
As is true in the United States generally, New York incarcerates people at different rates when examined using gender and racial/ethnic categories. As of 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's categorization system, about 48% of incarcerated individuals were Black or African American; 25% White; 25% Hispanic; and a small number belonging to other categories. In contrast, the largest group in the overall state population is non-Hispanic White. Thus, Black and Latin/Hispanic men are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated in the state.Age distribution
The population of New York State's prison system is aging, as is the population of New York State and of the United States overall. The average age of incarcerated people in the New York State prison system is 40 years old as of 2021, up from 36 years old in 2008. The proportion of incarcerated people over age 50 in NYS DOCCS facilities is nearly 25% as of 2021, double the proportion in 2008.There are a number of causes of the shift towards an older population. These include legislation that prohibits sending children under 18 years old to adult prisons ; declining rates of new incarcerations ; and population aging in the state, nationally, and globally. Another factor is the Rockefeller drug law reforms of 2009, which contributed to "significant declines in felony drug arrests, indictments on felony drug charges and prison commitments for felony drug crimes from 2010 through 2019." The reforms amended the mandatory sentencing laws that had been in place for drug-related crimes since 1973.
State prison system characteristics
As of 2022, New York State maintains forty-four state prisons, down from sixty-eight in 2011. By design, inmates are moved with some frequency between prisons, based on the belief that inmate–staff friendships that might lead, for example, to drug smuggling by staff.In part as a response to the Attica Prison uprising of 1971, a number of measures were taken to avoid future confrontations and reduce tensions between guards and prisoners. All New York State correctional facilities have monthly meetings between elected prisoner representatives and the prison administration, at which prisoners may present their concerns. A grievance process was instituted, by which prisoners may grieve any employee whom they feel is acting in violation of regulations. Other prison uprisings occurred across the country during the 1970s, spurred by poor prison conditions and demanding reforms.
At Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security women's prison, the August Rebellion led to greater protection of the rights of incarcerated people in the United States. Following the prison riot the women filed and won the class-action lawsuit Powell v. Ward. The lawsuit ended in a legally binding pledge by prison guards to conduct disciplinary proceedings fairly and to only send truly mentally ill prisoners to psychiatric hospitals.
Facilities and communication policies
Prisons are required to have law libraries, and most prisons have a general library, with a professional librarian. Incarcerated people usually have a limited amount of time to be outdoors. Incarcerated people have access to telephones, which requires recording and monitoring of calls, and some email access. Calls and emails can only be made out to pre-approved numbers and addresses. A prisoner lawsuit about 2010 dramatically reduced the very high charges per minute by the telephone service provider. New York has instituted a package policy, effective August 15, 2022, that allows incarcerated people to receive only two personally boxed packages per year from friends or family. All other packages— e.g., clothes, packaged foods, and other allowable items— must be purchased and shipped directly from vendors. Inmates are allowed three packages per month, based on the date they arrive at the facility. The policy prohibits visitors from bringing gifts of any kind to the prison, whereas visitors were allowed to bring gifts and drop them off at the package room in the past.Prisons generally have on their staff a chaplain, and a rabbi and imam, who usually visit several different prisons on different days of the week. At some medium-security prisons, facilities for conjugal visits are available for carefully selected inmates, including same-sex married couples. New York State is one of only four states with conjugal visits in 2014. They typically take place in trailers within the prison grounds, and some spouses bring children along, so sex offenders are not eligible for conjugal visits. No women's prison in New York has conjugal visits.