New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
Abbreviation NYS DOCCS

Patch of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

Logo of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
Agency overview
Preceding agency New York State Board of Prisons
Employees 31,300
Legal personality Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction* State of New York, United States
General nature
Operational structure
Headquarters Main Office Building 2 W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus 1220 Washington Ave. Albany, New York
Training Academy 1134 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, New York
Sworn members 23,000
Elected officer responsible Anthony J. Annucci, Commissioner of Corrections and Community Supervision
Facilities
Prisons 60
Website
www.docss.ny.us Official website
Footnotes
* Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction.

The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS) is the department of the New York state government[1] responsible for the care, confinement, and rehabilitation of inmates.

It is responsible for the care, confinement, and rehabilitation of approximately 54,700 inmates at 54 correctional facilities funded by the State of New York,[2] and currently supervises 36,500 parolees at seven regional offices.[3] The department employs a staff of approximately 31,300 individuals, including approximately 23,000 uniformed correction officers, and is currently the 12th largest state prison system in the United States.[4] Its regulations are compiled in title 7 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. The headquarters is located in Building 2 of the W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus in Albany.[5]

In response to falling crime rates and prison populations in New York State, the Department has closed a number of facilities between 2009 and 2014.[6] In 2011, the New York State Department of Correctional Services and the Division of Parole merged to form the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.[7]

Commissioners

Mission

The mission of NYSDOCS is to provide for public protection by administering a network of correctional facilities that:

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.

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.[10] 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. [11] 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 (originally the Ray Brook Sanatorium, founded in 1904) the Otisville Correctional Facility in 1976 (on the grounds of a former tuberculosis sanitarium founded in 1906), and the Mount McGregor Correctional Facility in 1976 (with a varied history since its opening in 1913, operated from 1969 through 1976 as the Wilton State School by the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene).

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,[12] the same dorms and messhalls, 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.[13]

From its peak in 1999, at 72,649, the total state prison population had dropped to 52,237 by August 1, 2016, a decrease of 28 percent.[14] Rapidly decreasing numbers of inmates has meant many prisons closed, with the loss of jobs in mostly rural communities, and pressure to consolidate further.[15]

As of 2016 New York did not contract with private prisons, according to state law.[16]

Facilities

see main List of New York state prisons

Characteristics of New York State prisons

In part as a response to the Attica Prison riot of 1971, a number of measures were taken to avoid future confrontations and reduce tensions. 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. Packages may be received year-round.

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.

New York State does not have any privately-run prisons, and it runs its own health service to treat prisoners.

New York State has also been the national leader in reducing prison population and closing prisons. The reduction is both due to lower crime rates and to diversion of offenders into alternative programs.

Training of correction officers

Newly appointed Correction Officer Trainees will be required to participate in, and satisfactorily complete, all requirements of a 12-month training program before they can advance to Correction Officer. As part of the program, recruits will attend the Correctional Services Training Academy for a minimum of eight weeks of formal training. Paid training at the Academy will include academic courses in such areas as emergency response procedures, interpersonal communications, firearms, unarmed defensive tactics, legal rights and responsibilities, security procedures, and concepts and issues in corrections. Recruits will also receive rigorous physical training to develop fitness, strength and stamina. To physically qualify, it is necessary to perform seven sequential job related tasks in two minutes and fifteen seconds or less. Failure in any of the tasks will result in the recruit failing to meet the agency qualification standards and, accordingly, being dismissed from the Academy. The test is administered during the final week of the training program at the Academy. A thorough explanation and demonstration of the course, and an opportunity for a trial run, will precede the final test.[17]

In labor negotiations, the guards are represented by the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.[18]

New York State correction officers have peace officer status under section 2.10 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law.[19] This authorizes them:

Death row

Prior to the 2007 repeal of the death penalty, the male death row was at the Clinton Correctional Facility and the female death row was at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.[20]

The last location for the execution chamber was in Green Haven Correctional Facility.[21] The death chamber at Green Haven had never hosted an execution.[22] Previously inmates were executed at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility.[23]

Fallen officers

Since the inception of the New York State Department of Correctional Services, 32 officers have died in the line of duty.[24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Correction Law(1). "There shall be in the state government a department of corrections and community supervision. The head of the department shall be the commissioner of corrections and community supervision[...]"
  2. ↑ http://www.doccs.ny.gov/, http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Fewer_Prisoners_Less_Crime.pdf retrieved 2014-08-14
  3. ↑ http://www.doccs.ny.gov/
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ "Contact Information." New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Retrieved on January 9, 2012. "Building 2 1220 Washington Ave Albany, New York 12226-2050"
  6. ↑ http://www.doccs.ny.gov/PressRel/2013/Prison_Closure_Announcement.html, http://www.doccs.ny.gov/PressRel/2008/prisonclosure.html, http://www.governor.ny.gov/press/06302011ClosureOfSevenStatePrisonFacilities, retrieved 2014-10-08
  7. ↑ Merger of Department of Correctional Services and Division of Parole, http://www.doccs.ny.gov/FactSheets/DOCS-Parole-Merger.html, retrieved 2014-08-18
  8. ↑ http://www.doccs.ny.gov/Annuccibio.htm
  9. ↑ "Dr. Kieb Is Dead. Long A State Aide, Former Correction Chief, 74, Was the Superintendent at Matteawan for 27 Years Appointed by Smith Favored Long Prison Terms". New York Times. March 13, 1956. Retrieved 2014-09-01. Dr. Raymond Francis Charles Kieb, former State Correction Commissioner and an international authority on criminal insanity, died yesterday in Vassar Hospital. He was 74 years old. Dr. Kieb retired in 1942 ...
  10. ↑ Joseph F., Spillane (9 May 2014). Coxsackie: The Life and Death of Prison Reform. JHU Press. p. 48. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  11. ↑ Pfeiffer, Mary Beth (2 October 2011). "Analysis: NY Prison Population's Dramatic Drop". nbcnewyork.com. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  12. ↑ "Washington Correctional Facility" (Prison Monitoring Report). Correctional Association of New York. 12 January 2011. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  13. ↑ Fine, Thomas (4 January 1992). "NYC Offers to Resell Prisons". Syracuse Post-Standard. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  14. ↑ "DOCCS FACT SHEET 8/1/2016" (PDF). NYS DOCCS. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  15. ↑ Spector, Joseph (9 May 2011). "Study Shows NY Corrections Running 88% Capacity". corrections.com. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  16. ↑ "Corrections statue section 121". New York State Senate. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  17. ↑ http://www.doccs.ny.gov/jobs/CorrectionOfficer.html
  18. ↑ Schwirtz, Michael; Winerip, Michael; Gebeloff, Robert (3 December 2016). "The Scourge of Racial Bias in New York State's Prisons". New York TImes. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  19. ↑ http://ypdcrime.com/cpl/article2.htm
  20. ↑ "Repeal of Death Sentence Regulations (Section 103.45 of 7 NYCRR)" (Archive). New York State Department of Correctional Services. Retrieved on September 2, 2010. "Repeal regulations requiring death sentence warrants to be provided to the Commissioner and persons sentenced to death to be delivered to Clinton and Bedford Hills Correctional Facilities (death row)[...]"
  21. ↑ "Inmate 99-B-0067" (Archive). New York State Department of Correctional Services. Saturday January 16, 1999. Retrieved on September 2, 2010."Monroe County Sheriff's Department officers transported Mateo at 4:45 a.m. today to the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora in Clinton County, location of the Unit for Condemned Prisoners (UCP) who are male[...]The UCP at Clinton has been physically operable for use since August 31, 1995, the day before the death penalty law took effect, as has a similar three-cell UCP for females at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County plus the single-cell death house at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville in Dutchess County. Neither of the two latter units will be staffed until there are inmates on them."
  22. ↑ Scott, Brendan. "GOV PULLS SWITCH ON DEATH CELL" (Archive). New York Daily News. July 24, 2008. Retrieved on September 2, 2010. "The Department of Correctional Services has quietly struck from the books a 40-year-old rule that designated the upstate Green Haven Correctional Facility the state’s “Capital Punishment Unit.”[...] Although seven defendants were sentenced to death after then-Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, signed the law, the death house has never hosted an execution.[...]"
  23. ↑ "Department Receives First Death Penalty Inmate." New York State Department of Correctional Services. July 22, 1998. Retrieved on September 2, 2010.
  24. ↑ The Officer Down Memorial Page
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