Bare Hill

During the first two years of Bare Hill's existence, stability seemed a pipe dream. Enough was never enough, and the constant expansion of bed and program space was standard operating procedure. Today, the atmosphere is calm and orderly. Bare Hill's 1,700 inmates more than twice what it was designed for - are accommodated in 28 comfortably spaced housing units with an effective program of activities, and relations with the neighbors are excellent.

Since its opening in 1988, both this medium-security prison for adult males and the village of Malone have grown rapidly, and mutual support has characterized their relationship throughout those 12 years. An active Community Advisory Board stands ready to identify and make community resources available as needed to prison officials. And in a complementary role, Bare Hill's employees and inmates regularly participate in Make-A-Difference Day activities, food drives and fundraisers for the needy, Toys for Tots and other Christmas charities.

Additionally, the facility has for many years supplied inmate manpower to a variety of not- for-profit organizations essential to the North Country quality of life. Inmates renovated Malone's hockey rink, for example, as well as the 19th Century Chateaugay United Methodist Church. Bare Hill initiated the popular gleaning program now operating in at least 14 DOCS facilities. And after the deadly and devastating 1998 ice storm, an area newspaper remarked that emergency services provided by the facility's staff and inmates constituted a "lifeline" for stranded Malone residents

Still another service was initiated in 1998. "Hard Facts" is a youth assistance program under which a team of two inmates meets with a group of local teens to candidly discuss their own histories while providing a realistic portrayal of prison life. The object of the program is to persuade youths to stay out of trouble through examining their behavior and its consequences. Like other community service activities, it is reasonable to assume that the experience is beneficial not only to the teens it serves but to the inmates as well.

Gleaning project continues to grow

Bare Hill is the birthplace of a new wrinkle on an ancient charitable practice. Leaving gleanings for the poor at harvest time dates back to Old Testament times, when reapers would deliberately leave some of the cut grain or other produce behind to be gathered up by the less fortunate. The Robin Hood-hearted reapers disappeared long ago, replaced by motorized harvesting machines. And even though the machines cannot pick up everything, modern agribusiness leaves little room for sentimental inefficiencies: What falls in the furrows is usually plowed over for the next planting.

But some farmers retain some of the spirit of the ancient reapers. Though it is not a productive use of their own time to walk the fields to pick up the leavings by hand, they are willing to delay plowing for a stipulated time to allow the hungry - or community volunteers acting on their behalf - to do so. In recent years, this has grown to a considerable undertaking requiring many hands.

In 1989, Franklin County's Community Action Agency (now renamed ComLinks) approached Peter Lacy, superintendent of Bare Hill from its opening until his retirement in 1999, to ask for assistance in processing the gleanings for delivery to food pantries. Lacy agreed and enlisted Bare Hill's inmates as inside community volunteers." Thus began an enduring partnership that continues to benefit tens of thousands of needy New Yorkers each year.

ComLinks' own resources of outside volunteers gathered fruits and vegetables in huge quantities and brought them to Bare Hill in bulk bins holding up to 1,000 pounds. Inmates sorted the produce for quality and re-packed it in smaller quantities (20-50 pound bags) for subsequent trucking to food pantries and other community agencies. Later, Bare Hill supplemented the gleaning yield with vegetables grown inside the facility on small garden plots with seeds and equipment provided by ComLinks.

Over the years, the Bare Hill program soon spread to other DOCS facilities. Neighboring Franklin, Altona, Lyon Mountain and Camp Gabriels contributed to ComLinks and similar community action agencies. They were joined by facilities to the west - Gouverneur, Watertown, Groveland, Wyoming, Cape Vincent and Albion and then by Auburn, Monterey and Wallkill. By 1999, well over a million pounds a year of crops such as corn, beans, asparagus, tomatoes and potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, apples and oranges, pumpkins, peppers and onions were given to needy individuals and families from the Canadian border south to New York City.

Corrections comes to Malone

Beset by the twin woes of a lifeless economy and a dwindling citizenry, the small upstate village of Malone pushed hard for selection by state officials as home to one of the many new prisons being built in the 1980's. Malone's campaign paid off. Bare Hill was the second of three prisons erected here in a brief 14-year span.

The prisons brought change to the surrounding countryside. Until recently, the road adjacent to the facility was just a dirt lane running a short stretch across a windswept, pine-dotted plateau 10 miles from the Canadian border Bare Hill Road is paved now, and there is a new gas station and mini-man where it crosses Cady Road. There is also a new traffic light at the intersection.

The changes were made possible, and necessary, by the three new correctional facilities which together brought over 1,600 civil service jobs to Malone's economy. Ripple effects - the re- distribution of an annual payroll of about $67 million - include new businesses such as the gas station/mini-mart in the former wilderness.

The first of Malone's three new prisons, opened in 1986, was situated on Cady Road and called Franklin Correctional Facility in keeping with the custom (begun at Clinton back in 1845) of using county names. Bare Hill - a quarter-mile west of Franklin and also fronting Cady Road - opened two years later and was named, on the suggestion of townspeople, after the featureless plateau on which it was constructed. The last to open, in1999, was Upstate, so called by analogy with DOCS' Mid-State and Downstate facilities; Upstate was built immediately behind the Bare Hill facility and is accessed along Bare Hill Road, now paved to handle the traffic.

The first busload of about 70 inmates arrived at the partially completed facility on November 23, 1988, the day before Thanksgiving. Within three weeks, all 756 beds were filled. Bare Hill functioned smoothly and quietly, offering work, education and counseling programs to its inmates.

The facility is one of nearly 30 prisons opened by the state of New York during the 1980's in one of the greatest building campaigns in the history of corrections anywhere. Architecturally, Bare Hill is identical to a dozen or so other medium security institutions (including Franklin), all built to the same design and specifications one-story, red brick with light gray roofing - grouped in standard configurations.

The "prototype" design (quickly dubbed the "cookie cutter") was developed by DOCS Division of Facilities Planning and the state Office of General Services to speed construction to house the skyrocketing prison census. Building to a time-tested prototype guaranteed a workable facility, while shaving years off the lengthy and expensive process of drawing new plans for each prison, evaluating bids and getting approvals.

At its opening, the Bare Hill campus included seven housing units, each walled down the middle to make two military-style barracks (or dormitories, as they are sometimes called) with separate entrances, day-rooms and offices. Each of the 14 barracks contained 54 beds in cubicles with chest-high partitions for a total of 756 general confinement inmates.

The facility also included an infirmary with 10 beds and a 32-cell disciplinary housing unit. Non-residential buildings included a gymnasium, a visitors' building, a kitchen and mess hall and a school building for the academic education and vocational training programs. These structures were enclosed by two rows of wire perimeter fencing topped with coiled blades of barbed razor ribbon, reinforced with microwave sensors and an array of cameras. An administration building, water tower, power plant and other outbuildings were erected beyond the fence.

Inmate programs

Almost every inmate at Bare Hill has a work assignment. Some work inside the facility in such areas as food service, laundry, grounds and maintenance, clerical assignments and assisting program counseling and education staff. A crew of inmates under Correction Officer supervision is assigned to outdoor work at the adjacent maximum-security Upstate facility.

Bare Hill offers an extensive education program to its inmates. Two school buildings, one on the main campus and one on the annex, serve the nearly 600 inmates enrolled in either academic or vocational classes or both. There are at present 10 vocational courses in welding, building maintenance, custodial maintenance, small engine repair drafting, masonry, floor covering, computer operation, general business and horticulture,

The facility also offers the Department's standard 330-hour Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment (ASAT) program, treating approximately 100 inmates at a time. The modular ASAT format permits resumption by inmates who are transferred to another facility before completion.

Bare Hill's 115-acre campus includes extensive recreation areas including softball, football and soccer fields; basketball, handball and racquetball courts; horseshoe pits; weights and fitness equipment; a running/walking track, and a music room.

The Transitional Services Program, though primarily intended to help inmates make the transition from incarceration to parole, encompasses services from reception to release. The program is administered by a counselor and staffed by 21 Inmate Program Associates who perform peer counseling under supervision as well as other duties. IPA's can be enrolled in a 1,000-hour apprenticeship program leading to a state Department of Labor certificate as a Social Living Skills Counselor Aide I.

Included in the broad variety of activities under the Transitional Services umbrella are two orientation courses (an introduction to DOCS for inmates received from reception centers and an orientation to Bare Hill for all inmates new to the facility); a pre-parole board preparation course; and a personal document service to assist inmates to apply for misplaced social security cards, birth certificates, marriage certificates, GED transcripts and other papers they will need on release.

The 100-hour Aggression Replacement Training (ART) program is also under Transitional Services, as are a college preparation program for inmates interested in pursuing independent study and a commercial drivers' license preparation course. For inmates nearing parole, Transitional Services staff conduct a 20-module release preparation course covering such topics as resume preparation and job search techniques, keeping a job, family relations, using community resources, life skills, sexual awareness, budgeting and HIV/AIDS awareness.

From bubble to annex

Bare Hill was established and shaped by the runaway juggernaut of 1980's correctional expansion. Once it opened, the institution exploded at a Big Bang pace, more than doubling its size in a 26-month flash of construction.

Despite the prison construction campaign of the 1980's, commitments to state prisons continued to exceed releases. In 1 989, with "state readies" backing up at Rikers Island and in other county jails, the New York State Sheriff's Association threatened to charge DOCS with contempt for violation of the mandate requiring the Department to take custody of inmates within 10 days of sentencing. To meet the emergency, the gymnasiums at several facilities were converted to temporary housing units. Two hundred beds were placed in Bare Hill's gym. For indoor recreation, a $93,000 plastic, air-supported tent - known to all as the "bubble" was erected near the rear fence.

Discontent among the 200 gym inmates led to the only large-scale incident in the facility's history. Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, February 13, 1990, an apple was thrown at an Officer seated at his station. When a Sergeant arrived, the inmates grew rowdy and unruly. They started shouting and banging objects, and assaulted two Officers who had to be pulled out to safety by other security staff The inmates then barricaded themselves behind their furniture.

The helmeted Officers grouped outside made no move to attack. There was nothing for the inmates to do but contemplate the absurdity of their situation: with no object in mind, they had walled themselves into a very uncomfortable corner They relinquished their position 'at about 4 p.m. that same afternoon.

Even before the incident in Bare Hill's gym, DOCS officials were formulating a proposal to expand system capacity by double-bunking at selected medium-security facilities. The proposal was approved by the state Commission of Correction, and implementation at Bare Hill commenced on March 6, 1990. In each of the 4 housing units, 29 of the 54 cubicles were doubled. This permitted the facility to remove the 200 inmates from the gym while realizing a net gain of 206 beds.

One month later, contractors broke ground for an "annex" just beyond the fence at the north side of the prison. The project was rushed to completion and was ready for inmate occupancy in just nine months. A gateway through the fence can, like a canal lock, be closed in an emergency to cut off movement, but it normally is open at all times: There is no distinction, in terms of programs or inmate characteristics, between the annex and the "main." Like the main, the annex has seven housing structures each divided into two barracks. The new section also has two additional buildings, identical in design to the housing units. One serves as a second school building, the other for the Transitional Services Program.

With the opening of the annex in January, 1991, Bare Hill was able to scale back double-bunking. Today, only six of the 54 cubicles in each unit are doubled. Altogether, the main and annex have a capacity of 1,680 general confinement beds, plus 32 disciplinary cells and 10 infirmary beds.

And the bubble? It finally collapsed in April under 22 inches of wet, heavy snow and was hauled off a few days later to a local landfill. No tears were shed: When double-bunking came and the cots departed the gym, the still new bubble -- like a giant marshmallow on the lawn -- was suddenly redundant. Impossible to heat in winter, a sauna in summer and a nightmare for claustrophobic sorts, it was seldom used.

The bubble served mainly as a reminder of the facility's frenzied early days. But if a new testimonial is needed - to the ingenuity and Herculean efforts of Bare Hill's staff to meet the challenges that were so relentlessly thrust upon them in the facility's infancy - the mature efficiency and quality programming of the last 10 years well.

History Index    Home Page