Prison News and News Articles For Correction Officers in New York State: { Page 74}

Lucian Laclair
Deputy Commissioner
State of New York
Department of Correctional Services
The Harriman State Campus (Building 2)
1220 Washington Ave
Albany, N.Y. 12226-2050

VIA FACSIMILE: 518-457-7252

Commissioner Laclair,

I am writing this letter to express to you some very serious concerns over the safety and security of my members and of the community and residents surrounding Arthur Kill Correctional Facility. In this communication I will address two of those concerns, first the closure of the wall towers and second the assigning of the emergency response key ring for the entire compound to an inside post.

At the present time Arthur Kill Correctional Facility serves as a clear and present danger to staff and the community. What is appalling is that despite the recommendations made by the facility Deputy Superintendent for Security to enhance the security and reopen certain crucial Wall towers, the Department has decided to disregard those recommendations. They have decided to run a “cost effective” facility at the expense of the safety of the Officers and community.

Within the last three years Arthur kill had at least one escape attempt in which a 40 year old convicted felon breached the security of the facility, scaled the fence adjacent to a closed wall tower and reached the outer perimeter fence before an alarm sounded. Luck would have it that he was apprehended before he escaped.

Of the Six wall towers surrounding Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, towers Three through Six are closed on all tours. The entire rear perimeter of the facility is left unsecured due to this fact. There is an item assigned to cover tower Four on the three to eleven shift. However this item is used to circumvent the hiring of over time leaving the wall tower unmanned on a daily basis.

The department is well aware that these facts are well known by the 1000 inmates or so imprisoned at Arthur Kill Correctional Facility. Since the knowledge of closed towers by the inmates played a major factor in a recent escape at Elmira Correctional Facility.

Secondly it has been brought to my attention that the emergency response key ring for the entire compound is assigned to a yard officer. It is my understanding that this particular key ring would have normally been secured in a wall tower and only given to responding officers in case of an emergency. However since the towers are closed this key ring was reassigned to the yard officers post. In an unfortunate event in which the Officer with this key ring is attacked or overrun the inmates will gain control of the entire compound in moments.

The safety and security of our members and the community surrounding Arthur Kill Correctional Facility is of the utmost importance. I am requesting the re-evaluation into the closure of the wall towers and the assigning of the Emergency Keys.

Please do not hesitate to call me at 917-359-9649 if I can be of any assistance on this matter.

Sincerely,

Willie Perez
Southern Region Vice President

An arbitration panel has awarded the union representing state Correctional Officers an 11-percent retroactive raise over four years, consistent with state civilian union deals negotiated in this round of bargaining.

The award marks the first time that the New York State Correctional Officers' and Police Benevolent Association moved to have its contract decided by a threemember Public Employment Relations Board panel.

The union was hoping that the arbitration panel would help bridge the salary and benefits gap between Correctional Officers and their law-enforcement colleagues. The award includes increases a uniform allowance, longevity payments, and a special security law-enforcement differential (SLED) for the union's approximately 22,000 officers.

But the overall raises fall short of the four-year contract the state Troopers' Benevolent Association negotiated last summer. That deal provided 12.5 percent in raises and a list of other benefits for veteran officers, including a pensionable $2,575 "expanded duty pay" bonus compensation for their added anti-terrorism responsibilities since Sept. 11, 2001.

"We don't think we got everything we wanted, but we definitely feel that we took a step in the right direction to separate us from the other collective-bargaining units," said Larry Flanagan, the first-year NYSCOPBA president, during an April 7 phone interview.

Under the unanimous three-person decision, which runs through March 31, 2007, officers receive a 2.25-percent hike retroactive to April 1, 2003, and a 2.75percent raise retroactive to April 1, 2004. Officers will also receive 3-percent raise retroactive to April 1, 2004 and another 3-percent hike April 1, 2006.

Mr. Flanagan noted that on the last day of the contract, the uniformed allowance will be rolled into base pay and increased to $1,075. Also, the SLED fund will be boosted to $1,550 at the end of the deal.

"Our focus was to increase base salary," Mr. Flanagan said. "Because in the long run, when all is said in done, when you increase base salary then you increase the money you are bringing home into your pocket."

According to the union president, the average Correctional Officer stands to receive $8,000 in back pay. In addition, officers on the job for 25 years will receive a $9,555 longevity payment.

COs assigned to New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, and Rockland counties will receive the same 11-percent retroactive increase in their location pay differential, which was $1,200 before the award was issued.

The award also included the health insurance package first accepted by the Civil Service Employees' Association. That mean co-pays will go from $25 to $30 for hospital visits and from $35 to $50 for emergency-room visits. Co-pays for doctor's office visits and outpatient surgical procedures and diagnostic services will rise from $10 to $12. There will also be additional co-pay increases for some brand-name drugs, although co-pays will not rise for brand-name drugs on a "preferred" list or generic drugs.

A jury had a message yesterday for a cop-killing black radical: Forget about striking it rich in jail.

The panel ordered imprisoned thug Abdul Majid to pay a whopping $42 million to the estate of slain NYPD cop John Scarangella and his surviving partner Richard Rainey.

"He doesn't deserve anything," said Tom Scarangella, 33-year-old son of the cop who was gunned down on a Queens street in 1981. "He deserves to spend his life in jail - and that's it."

Even though the families will likely see little of the cash, they can rest easy knowing Majid, 57, won't get to enjoy a $15,000 award he won after prison guards roughed him up.

"[He] is nothing more than a cowardly cop killer," said Gregory Longworth, a lawyer for Rainey and Scarangella's estate. "Today, his debt has come due."

The jury in Poughkeepsie deliberated for eight hours to reach the verdict under the state Son of Sam law, awarding about $25 million to Rainey, 59, and the rest to Scarangella's widow, Vivian, 61, and the couple's kids.

Jurors say they had no doubts about Majid's liability and only regretted that a legal technicality prevented them from giving more to Scarangella's estate.

Along with another Black Panther, Majid, formerly known as Anthony LaBorde, riddled Scarangella and Rainey with bullets after the cops stopped their van on a Queens street in 1981.

Corrections Commissioner Glenn Goord had a close encounter with police in Lake Placid earlier this month when he got stopped for chatting on a hand-held cellphone.

But even with a few drinks before he got behind the wheel, Goord says he was sent on his way after showing his license and registration -- and his badge -- to the cop.

Police said they have no record of stopping Goord, but the commissioner in an interview acknowledged he was pulled over May 3 in the Essex County village, while he was talking on his cellphone. However, Goord, who was there for a labor-management conference, is a peace officer and allowed to use his phone without a hands-free device. Goord also said he'd had a "couple of glasses of wine at dinner," but says he was not drunk.

"I opened my wallet. My license is right by my badge," he said. "The whole thing couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes."

ALBANY -- The rate of assaults by prisoners against correction officers dropped to a 25-year low last year, according to an annual state report scheduled for release Wednesday.

The state Department of Correctional Services report said safety programs, early release for good behavior by nonviolent offenders and active participation in academic and drug programs have contributed to a 42 percent decrease in recidivism, or the number of inmates returning to prison for new crimes within two years of their release. There was 8.1 percent recidivism on felonies within two years in 2003, down from 13.7 percent recidivism in 1994.

During that period, the prisoner population declined to 62,732 from 68,489 in 1995.

"The data show our prisons today are safer than ever before for staff, inmates and visitors," said department Commissioner Glenn Goord. "This department's first responsibility is to ensure that our employees can come to work and go home every day without being attacked by inmates."

"There is still a substantial amount of violence between inmates and inmates and staff," said Jack Beck of the Correctional Association of New York, a watchdog group for prisoners and their families. He based his statement on the group's survey of more than 1,000 prisoners from late 2005 into this year. He hadn't seen the new state report.

"Whether it's relatively better, I can't say. But it's still a serious problem," Beck said.

95 percent of prisoners are assigned to academic, vocational, drug treatment or work assignments. Prisoners are paid an average of $1 a day and can buy basic amenities at the commissary. The annual prisoner payroll is $16 million.

The number of inmates in disciplinary confinement for misbehavior fell 11 percent to 4,680 in December, from 5,271 in 1997.

WASHINGTON - Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer.

The total on June 30, 2005, was 56,428 more than at the same time in 2004, the government reported Sunday. That 2.6 percent increase from mid-2004 to mid-2005 translates into a weekly rise of 1,085 inmates.

Of particular note was the gain of 33,539 inmates in jails, the largest increase since 1997, researcher Allen J. Beck said. That was a 4.7 percent growth rate, compared with a 1.6 percent increase in people held in state and federal prisons.

Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, while the other third, nearly 750,000, were in local jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Beck, the bureau's chief of corrections statistics, said the increase in the number of people in the 3,365 local jails is due partly to their changing role. Jails often hold inmates for state or federal systems, as well as people who have yet to begin serving a sentence.

"The jail population is increasingly unconvicted," Beck said. "Judges are perhaps more reluctant to release people pretrial."

The report by the Justice Department agency found that 62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted, meaning many of them are awaiting trial.

Overall, 738 people were locked up for every 100,000 residents, compared with a rate of 725 at mid-2004. The states with the highest rates were Louisiana and Georgia, with more than 1 percent of their populations in prison or jail. Rounding out the top five were Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

The states with the lowest rates were Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire. Men were 10 times to 11 times more likely than women to be in prison or jail, but the number of women behind bars was growing at a faster rate, said Paige M. Harrison, the report's other author.

The racial makeup of inmates changed little in recent years, Beck said. In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, which supports alternatives to prison, said the incarceration rates for blacks were troubling.

"It's not a sign of a healthy community when we've come to use incarceration at such rates," he said.

Mauer also criticized sentencing guidelines, which he said remove judges' discretion, and said arrests for drug and parole violations swell prisons.

"If we want to see the prison population reduced, we need a much more comprehensive approach to sentencing and drug policy," he said.

FORT ANN N. Y. Great Meadow Correctional Facility was locked down Friday after a mess-hall brawl that correction officers used tear gas to quell, officials said.

Three inmates were treated at the prison infirmary for wounds they suffered during the brawl, said Michael Fraser, a spokesman for the state Department of Correctional Services.

The prison was locked down afterward so cells could be searched for weapons, a lockdown that could take as long as five days, Fraser said.

The tear gas was used during a fight during breakfast that saw one prisoner armed with a metal homemade weapon attack three other prisoners, officials said. No prison staff members were hurt.

No inmate names were released, but the inmate who started the melee was expected to be criminally charged when the investigation was complete.

Inmates are confined to cells during lockdowns, with jail programs canceled indefinitely. The last lockdown at Great Meadow occurred in November.

Dennis Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which represents state correction officers, said the melee came as prison staff dealt with 17 inmate-on-inmate fights the last seven days, many involving weapons.

"That’s a good indication there are some problems up there," said Fitzpatrick, a former Great Meadow correction officer.

He said it was unclear what prompted the violence, though union officials found it ironic that it came two days after a state report was released focusing on a drop in the number of prison assaults.

According to the union president, the average Correctional Officer stands to receive $8,000 in back pay. In addition, officers on the job for 25 years will receive a $9,555 longevity payment.

A3340 will (with Gov. Pataki's signature) be a great benefit for Officers who will be 55 years old and have 30 or more years of state service credit. The Tier 4 option will do two things for Correction Officers. It will eliminate all penalties for Officers with 30 years of service and are over the age of 55 and will eliminate the 60% FAS cap that applies to us. Since this will be the first year where Tier 3 Officers will have 30 years of Correctional Service credit this is a great benefit that can add another 10% FAS. That could add another $6000 - $8000 more in annual retirement benefits. The elimination of the 60% cap is also significant. In my case I will have 34 years of state service when I turn 55. If I average a $80,000 FAS I would be eligible for a 50% FAS under our current plan with age reduction penalties. My retirement benefit would be $40,000 per year. However, if I have the same Tier 4 option that is given to civilian Tier 3's I would retire with a 66.64% FAS. Instead of a $40,000 retirement benefit I would receive a $53,312 benefit. Even prior state service credit in other departments can be used for the 55/30 retirement benefit.

DESTITO, PERALTA, COLTON, PHEFFER; M-S: Aubry Amd SS600 & 700, Art 17 Art head, add S701, R & SS L Allows tier 3 correction officers and tier 3 and 4 security hospital treatment assistants to become eligible to receive benefits under article 15 of the retirement and social security law in addition to the half pay plan at 25 years.

FISHKILL … Fishkill Correctional Facility employees who called in sick Tuesday … more than 80 of them on the day shift … are being asked to provide medical documentation for their absences.

Security staff were told at lineups and when they called in sick about the documentation requirement, said Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correctional Services. It was unclear exactly when the request, which remains in effect until further notice, was made.

There was no clear evidence of a job action by the 83 or so employees who called in sick for Tuesday's 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift and a correction officers union official denied the incident was motivated by contract issues.

The 23,000-member union has not gotten a raise since 2002. They were awarded a double-digit raise over four years by an arbitrator in March, but haven't seen any money yet.

With 83 employees of 165 absent, the correctional facility was forced to shutdown morning programs and some facilities Tuesday. Programs were restored by the end of the day.

By Wednesday's day shift, 35 people called in sick. By Thursday, the numbers were closer to normal, Foglia said.

The head of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, Inc., suggested the unusual number of absence was connected to Tuesday's heat, when temperatures reached the mid 90s.

Larry Flanagan hadn't been told of the state's medical documentation request by Thursday afternoon.

We are requesting your attendance and support on August 25, 2006 at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY. August 25th is Law Enforcement Day and Alan Hevesi, NYS Comptroller Day at the fair. We think it is quite fitting to schedule our protest on this day and location. We will be voicing our message that "We deserve our raises and retroactive payments now!"

Members, family and friends are invited to attend to support our message of timely payment of our raises. We will meet at 10:30am and the rally will last until 1:00pm. We will provide signs and T-shirts for all adults attending. To show our appreciation for all who attend, we will be distributing entry tickets into the fair so you can enjoy the rest of the day. If you happen across Comptroller Hevesi in the fair, be sure to ask him when will be receiving our raise.

We need everyone who plans to attend to sign up with your Chief Steward, including the total number of friends or family attending with you, so we can estimate the number of supplies needed. RSVP by August 18th. NYSCOPBA will be providing busses to areas where there is a large sign-up of members. In the event that Comptroller Hevesi agrees to pay us the wages we are due prior to the scheduled protest, we will still provide busses, T-shirts and fair tickets.

Bus schedules and our meeting point have yet to be decided. Please check the web site after the August 18th sign up deadline for more information on the days schedule.

High-profile killers Pamela Smart and Carolyn Warmus garnered headlines and inspired TV movies by committing heartless crimes against innocent and unwitting victims.

But in prison, the two join a growing number of female inmates who claim they're the victims - of sexual abuse committed by the male guards assigned to protect them.

A pending class-action lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal Court by 15 current or former inmates at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County shows the depth of the problem facing women's prisons.

"A penis should be an occupational disqualifier," said Eleanor Pam, a former John Jay College professor who has befriended victims at Bedford Hills.

Since New York made it a crime for guards to have sex with inmates a decade ago, more than two dozen guards have been convicted of sexual-assault charges, according to documents filed in a class-action suit.

Even "Long Island Lolita" Amy Fisher sued the state in 1996, claiming she was sexually assaulted and harassed by guards at the upstate Albion Correctional Facility while serving time for the 1992 shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco. She dropped the lawsuit three years later.

Smart and Warmus have their own suits pending in Manhattan Federal Court, claiming they were sexually assaulted by prison guards.

Schoolteacher Smart, who persuaded a teen lover to kill her husband in 1990, claims she was attacked by a guard who took photos of her half-naked in her cell at Bedford Hills.

Warmus was a millionaire's daughter dubbed the "Fatal Attraction" killer after she was convicted of murdering her lover's wife in 1990 in Greenburg, N.Y.

She claims that while doing 25 years to life in Bedford Hills she was forced to trade sex for time out of her cell with a prison lieutenant accused of sexual-abuse charges that were later dropped.

"The best remedy is to get all male guards out of female prisons," said Pam, an expert on domestic violence.

But efforts to keep male guards out of women's prisons have been resisted by female guards, who fear they would be shut out of the opportunities for advancement and better pay that exist in men's prisons, prison advocates say.

From 1998 to 2004, more than 700 allegations of sexual misconduct by guards were reported by female inmates, according to court records. There are currently 2,858 female inmates in state prisons.

Last year, three male guards were convicted of sexual misconduct involving female inmates, and three other cases are pending, according to the state Department of Correctional Services.

"The department has a zero tolerance regarding the sexual abuse of inmates," said department spokesman Mike Fraser.

One post leads you to believe that the Health Care Benefits were not part of the arbitration process. It also leads you to believe that neither the Executive Board nor the Executive Assembly was told the truth regarding negotiation of the Health Care Benefits as part of the Arbitration Process.

(See minutes and attendance sheets for the 12/7/05 Executive Assembly Meeting when it was clearly explained during the President's report what was taking place regarding health benefits. Minutes are available in their entirety on the NYSCOPBA website.)

It really saddens me because more information has been supplied either by mailings, website posts, Executive Board and Executive Assembly meeting minutes since NYSCOPBA's inception than in the 19 years I had with our former representatives. Yet the information continues to be perceived out of context and then disseminated as mis-information.

Let me address the arbitration process first - there are some who believe that it is a sterile process; by that I mean you make your demands in front of the arbitrator and the arbitrator alone makes the final decision.

Once the public phase of the process concludes, the "PANEL" then goes into Executive Session. Executive Session continues to be a negotiation process. If the panel member who represents the state and the panel member who represents us cannot come to an agreement, then the arbitrator will agree with one of them to make the decision.

In the case of the Health Benefits Package - we were advised by the "experts" it would be in the entire membership's best interest to try to come to an agreement.

The wisdom behind this advice is simple. The arbitrator comes from the real world were people pay huge ever-rising costs for health care.

The common thread of the states case was that we are the same as the other state employees (mostly CSEA) except we already make more money. It is likely that their argument would have been that we could afford to pay more than lower salaried state employees/retirees. It is conceivable that the arbitrator would have agreed with them.

Therefore, our panel member and the state panel member came to an agreement which closely mirrors the Health Benefit Package already in place for the vast majority of current state employees and retirees. (We are all in the same plan - those behind us will be sharing the cost for us so we can have health insurance when we retire.)

This was then incorporated into the award. This is not unique to the NYSCOPBA arbitration process. To state that members should have voted on this, shows a complete lack of understanding regarding the process. The Health Benefits Package was an arbitration demand of the STATE, not NYSCOPBA - without agreement of the panel there is no choice but arbitration.

There are those who fail to realize that when you hire a representative such as Mike Axelrod or any other expert for that matter, it is commonly understood (implied) that the individual has the latitude to act on your behalf - as your agent. In this case - he was acting on behalf of all NYSCOPBA members, as he was hired with the approval of both the Executive Board and the Executive Assembly.

For some reason it seems to be an inherent trait in some individuals, that even though we hire experts to advise us and act on our behalf, we somehow know better then the experts. Usually after the fact!!! Go figure!!!

I think it is pretty clear - Mike doesn't have a crystal ball, he had no way to knowing how long it would take for the pay bill process to be completed. He could only judge by his previous experience with the State Troopers and their pay bills. The same applies to Bill Sheehan and Senator D'Amato.

The projected date of July 1, 2006 was the date given to us by the STATE for the calculation of retro - but none of that can take place without the Governors signature on the legislation which gives the Comptroller the authority to calculate our salaries/retro and then pay us.

(We are within the historical 4 month time frame (for others with arbitration) from the time the aware is issued until the pay bill is signed.)

The Comptroller is the only one who can tell us when we will be paid. (See articles 11.1 and 30 in the Collective Bargaining Agreement - they have always been there.)

As far as the health Benefits becoming effective on July 1, 2006, that part of the process was completed when the award was signed. The expanded benefits under the new Health Benefits package were implemented with the signing of the award in March. There are members and their families currently utilizing these benefits, some for life threatening illness. (Only the Co-pays became effective July 1, 2006.)

The ALES award timing - read the award they held their last meeting in January. Why it took until June to issue the award is anyone's guess. Their pay bill was done in 11 days must be Jupiter was aligned with Mars - and no one else was in the pipe line. What I find disturbing NYSCOPBA, the BCI and ALES all went to the Governors desk at the same time, regardless of when their awards issued.

No body ever said this was going to be an easy or short process. For those of you out there who have not been around as long as I have, for the first time in our history we are getting significant retro checks. Retro until the day the checks are cut.

That's no zero's folks. Those of us who have been around can NEVER make up for the zeros.

More importantly, for all future awards we have an arbitrator's opinion which states we deserve to be compared to those who perform like services. The state can no long compare us it's other employees(mostly CSEA). We leave your future in a better place.

AUBURN, N.Y (AP) -- State police were investigating a reported assault by an inmate on a female civilian worker at the Auburn Correctional Facility on Saturday.

Linda Foglia, spokeswoman for the Department of Correctional Services, says the attack occurred at 12:30 p.m. Friday. The area was left unguarded because cost-cutting measures in the 1990s eliminated a corrections officer position.

Foglia says the 34-year-old inmate is serving 25 to 50 years, for rape, sodomy, robbery and burglary convictions.

Foglia says the employee in the prison's storehouse was walking down a corridor when the inmate grabbed her from behind. Another employee overheard the struggle and came to her assistance.

Albany – Senator Michael F. Nozzolio (R,C-Fayette), Chairman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee, today called for the State Comptroller to immediately release retroactive pay raises to thousands of New York’s correction officers.

Senator Nozzolio sponsored legislation (S.8295) that approved an arbitration award of pay raises and bonuses for correction officers statewide. Senator Nozzolio called for the release of the funding after learning that the State Comptroller’s office may not process the salary increases until 2007.

“The brave men and women currently employed in our correctional facilities are highly skilled, trained and qualified to maintain a high level of security in our prisons and we must continue to support them in their efforts. Every day, these individuals go to work and place their personal safety on the line in order to ensure not only the safety of our correctional facilities, but the safety of our communities. It is only right that these men and women be compensated for their hard work and dedication.”

Under the provisions of the Senator’s legislation, basic annual salaries for correctional officers would go up more than 11 percent. Included were retroactive raises of 2.25 percent for April 1, 2003, 2.75 percent in 2004 and 3 percent raises in 2005 and 2006.

The legislation was approved by both houses of the Legislature and has been signed into law by Governor Pataki.

Below is a copy of a letter from Senator Nozzolio to Comptroller Alan Hevesi calling for the release of the pay raises for New York’s correction officers.

Comptroller Alan Hevesi
New York State Comptroller’s Office
110 State Street
Albany, New York 12236

As Chairman of the State Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections committee, I write to you today to urge your immediate action to expedite compensation and benefits to New York State Correction Officers as outlined in legislation (S.8295) approved by both houses of the legislature and enacted into law by the Governor.

This legislation calls for retroactive pay raises and longevity bonuses to the thousands of brave men and women who serve as New York State Correction Officers.

It is my understanding that your staff has indicated that they cannot guarantee prompt payment of the enacted pay raises and that your office may not be able to process the salary increase until the first quarter of 2007. That is simply unacceptable.

As you are well aware, the negotiations between the state and NYS Correction Officers Police Benevolent association (NYSCOPBA) ended months ago and your office has been made well aware of the details. Recognizing that, there simply is no excuse for any delay in processing the salary increases and longevity bonuses for correction officers.

For too long New York Correction Officers have gone without an increase in base pay and any delay in processing these extremely justified increases in salary by your office is simply unacceptable.

The families of more than 20,000 correction officers are counting on this income, which was earned under some of the most difficult working conditions imaginable, and it is incumbent upon your office to ensure a timely distribution of these funds.

New York’s Correction Officers walk the toughest beat of any law enforcement official every day, they put their lives on the line to protect New York’s communities and families. The State Legislature has adopted this long overdue recognition and Governor Pataki enacted the pay raises and longevity bonuses into law - now it is the responsibility of the State Comptroller to act expeditiously.

Any delay by your office in distributing these funds would be disrespectful of the brave men and women correction officer who have waited for too long to receive this overdue monetary recognition of their courageous service.

Press Releases
17 July, 2006
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Marcus Povinelli (518) 588-5478

J. Christopher Callaghan, Republican and Conservative candidate for New York Comptroller, criticized his opponent, incumbent Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, for what Callaghan called "the lack of planning and the lackadaisical attitude" towards the State's obligation to correction officers under an arbitration settlement with the NYS Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.

Callaghan summed up the situation as follows: "The arbitrator said 'Pay them", the Governor and legislature agreed, and the Comptroller's office said, "We'll get to it next year."

Citing the size of the task and the complication of the calculations, the Comptroller's office originally said that the payments would be made in the first quarter of 2007. Pressure from the union and from Senator Michael Nozzolio (R-Seneca County) has prompted the Comptroller to agree to "advance" some of the money later this year

"The unfortunate inability of the Comptroller's office to respond to the approved arbitration between the State and NYSCOPBA another example of what happens when politicians rather than professionals run the Comptroller's office. It's part of the same attitude that resulted in the loss of personal data twice this year," Callaghan said.

Callaghan pointed out that most modern payroll systems are designed to facilitate systematic pay increases including retroactive pay and faulted Hevesi for not addressing any shortcomings in the State's payroll system during his three and a half years in office. "He has known for three years that this settlement would occur and he's known for three months what the settlement was. There's been no planning. There's been no competent direction. The Comptroller's office has gone from a paragon of excellence under (former Comptrollers) Arthur Levitt and Ned Regan to the Gang Who Can't Shoot Straight."

Callaghan has stated that his goal as Comptroller would be return the office to its former level of competence. "I'm not suggesting that this payroll change is an easy task but, had I been Comptroller, the office would have been ready for it."

Callaghan also wondered if the computer files that were lost in June had been found. "That was part of the same syndrome: no attention to planning or procedures, all eyes focused on the next press release."

Callaghan said that he appreciated that the Comptroller's office had limited resources but "the lack of adequate planning means that more resources will be consumed, more tax money will be spent, and the corrections officers will wait longer for their pay."

Callaghan concluded, "That planning would not have generated one press release and so it was ignored. If the Mr. Hevesi wants to do things more interesting than paperwork, he should run for Mayor of New York City again. If he's going to be the New York State Comptroller, let him embrace the drudgery and do the job."

A local judge has ruled that the state Department of Correctional Services provides adequate worship services for Muslim inmates.

The decision by Sullivan County Court Judge Frank LaBuda was reported in the New York Law Journal. The case involves an inmate at Fishkill

Correctional Facility who is a practicing Shiite Muslim. The inmate argued that the prison's services were for those of the Sunni denomination, and that the prison's sole Imam, a Sunni, regards Shiites as infidels.

New York's prison system allows Shiites to attend separate religious education programs and to observe their unique religious calendar.

LaBuda's ruling, according to the Law Journal, is that precedent doesn't require a separate service for each denomination.

While inmates are guaranteed the right to free exercise of religion, that right must be balanced against the legitimate concerns and interests of the prison system.

The prison system's concerns with security, staffing and space restrictions are valid, LaBuda ruled. "The alternative – providing every religious denomination with a separate service – wouuld be disastrous."

FISHKILL — Was it the heat, or a job action? That's the question for the state after about half the employees at Fishkill Correctional Facility called in sick Tuesday.

The state corrections officers union denies a job action was in play when about 83 of the 165 employees for Tuesday's 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift called in sick.

The state is investigating the matter, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correctional Services said Wednesday.

The absence of so many employees fell on one of the hottest days of the summer and forced the prison to go without programs, close the law library and institute emergency sick time only, spokeswoman Linda Foglia said. Services were restored later in the day.

The number of employees calling in sick has since declined: 14 of 138 employees on the next shift called in sick, while 35 called in sick for Wednesday's day shift and three were out ill on the second shift.

"It seems like we're getting closer to our normal numbers," she said. "We're investigating."

Foglia declined to say what action the department might take, if any, against those who called in sick.

Perhaps it was the weather, said Larry Flanagan, president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association Inc.

"I can understand how the state could make that accusation. There's a lot of tension and frustration around the state," he said.

That could be because the 23,000-member union was awarded a double-digit raise over four years in March but has yet to see any money, Flanagan said.

Flanagan said he found no evidence of a sick-out or job action, informal or otherwise, connected to the large number of ill employees.

FISHKILL, N.Y. (AP) -- The state Department of Correctional Services was investigating Wednesday the widespread absence of employees at the Fishkill Correctional Facility earlier this week.

Weather could be to blame - the employees called in sick on one of the hottest days of the year, said Larry Flanagan, president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.

The union did not organize a sickout protest, but tensions have been high among prison employees since the 23,000-member union was awarded a raise in March, he said.

Prison workers have not yet seen any of the promised wage increase, Flanagan said.

The Fishkill prison responded to the shortage of employees by temporarily eliminating prison programs, closing the law library and instituting emergency sick time only, said Linda Foglia, a Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman.

BEDFORD — The cashmere gloves she purchased nearly 20 years ago ccontinue to haunt Carolyn Warmus.

The state Supreme Court's Appellate Division has rejected the former schoolteacher's attempt to have her conviction thrown out in the so-called "Fatal Attraction" murder in which Warmus was convicted of fatally shooting her lover's wife in the living room of the dead woman's Greenburgh apartment in 1989.

The ruling by a four-judge panel in Brooklyn might deal a death blow to Warmus' efforts to overturn her 1992 conviction for second-degree murder in the slaying of Betty Jeanne Solomon, in a case that was splashed across the tabloids and spawned books and movies about the leggy daughter of a millionaire and her obsession with a married lover, Paul Solomon.

"Obviously, we're very disappointed," said Jillian Harrington, one of Warmus' lawyers. Harrington said Warmus would apply to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, for permission to appeal, but conceded the chances of getting that are slim.

A spokesman for Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore welcomed the decision that was reached Tuesday.

"We are pleased but not surprised that the Appellate Division upheld the conviction," Lucian Chalfen said.

Warmus' first trial in 1991 ended with a hung jury. But she was convicted in May 1992 after a second trial. Warmus, 42, is serving a sentence of 25 years to life in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

The key difference in the two trials was a black glove that Paul Solomon found in his bedroom closet on the eve of the second trial. In police photographs of the crime scene, the left-handed glove could be seen next to the lifeless body of Betty Jeanne Solomon, who had been shot nine times before 8 p.m. Jan. 15, 1989.

Paul Solomon discovered his wife's body when he returned home later that night after having sex with Warmus in her parked car outside a Holiday Inn in Yonkers.

The glove was absent from the first trial. Solomon told police he found the glove in his apartment before the second trial. Prosecutors and Warmus' lawyer, William Aronwald, clashed over whether the jury should see the glove.

At first, Westchester County Court Judge John Carey refused to admit the glove. But when prosecutors produced Warmus' American Express credit card statement showing she purchased similar gloves at Filene's Basement for $10, the evidence was admitted.

Fibers from the glove matched those found on the dead 40-year-old mother's hands. Blood also was found on the glove, though DNA testing was not available to determine whose blood it was. The glove was the only piece of evidence that connected Warmus to the scene.

Aronwald argued there was no way to determine if Warmus' gloves were the same color and style as the black glove Solomon produced before the second trial. Solomon did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

"It was the determining issue in the trial," Aronwald said yesterday. "It was a bad decision."

It also was the key issue in her appeal, Harrington said. Carey's decision to admit the glove was the focus of oral arguments in April before the appellate judges. But the glove was only mentioned briefly in a terse two-page decision by the judges.

"Contrary to the defendant's contention, the court properly admitted the glove into evidence," the judges wrote.

The judges also rejected claims Warmus filed on her own behalf that Carey wrongly excluded evidence that would impugn private investigator Vincent Parco. Testifying under immunity from prosecution, Parco said he sold Warmus the gun and silencer that was used in the killing.

Parco, whose CourtTV show "Parco P.I." will launch its second season next month, said he wasn't surprised the case still had legal legs.

"That's the only hope she has that she'll get out, is to keep filing appeals," he said. "She's going to keep trying, I'll tell you that."

You can't really compare life at the Auburn Correctional Facility to a gripping HBO drama series like “Oz.”

Thwarting escape attempts and riot plans are by no means part of administrators' routine. Rather, staffers oversee about 1,800 inmates within a venerable, timeworn structure that's practically part of Auburn's nearly 200-year-old DNA.

Prisoners at the maximum-security site - which includes some of the state's worst felons - might hold down jobs, attend classes or play basketball, volleyball or soccer in the concrete yard. Everyone gets three square meals a day.

Like residents in any town, some prisoners are unhappy with the way things are run, while others are pleased. Superintendent Harold Graham gets letters from them all, though, he confided, mostly he gets complaints. In some cases, said the

51-year-old ex-marine, tedium at the facility closely mimics life in the workaday world.

While similarities doubtless exist, it's hard to pretend a secured facility like ACF - with razor ribbon-topped fences, armed guards and electronic monitoring systems - runs like your local school district.

The state included ACF in a 44-page treatise it released this past spring on safety in the 69 state-run prisons that make up the nation's fourth-largest corrections system. The report, titled “Prison Safety in New York,” bestowed nearly unabashed praise from the Department of Correctional Services for advances toward reducing tensions and violence in prisons under Gov. George Pataki's administration.

Considering a series of publicized incidents involving ACF inmates just in the last few years - most recently the attempted escape in July by one inmate from a police transport van in Cicero, another inmate's assault last month on a female employee at the facility, and the June assault conviction of a former inmate on a corrections officer in Feb. 2005 - it's hard not to wonder just how safe the two prisons are that sit in Cayuga County.

The July incident involving the assault of a civilian officer fomented state corrections officers' complaints over the years about inappropriate or understaffing at the prison. Earlier this month, Chris Leo, the legislative director of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), publicly blasted Pataki for vetoing legislation that would have allowed officers to work beyond their minimum eligiblity of retirement.

Mandatory retirement regulations are seeing the wave of officers that came in 20 years ago receding, he said, threatening to leave prisons everywhere severely understaffed and violent offenders with far less supervision.

Over the last five years alone, ACF has seen lockdowns around riots and contraband, and convictions for assaults on one another or on staff.

Still, seated behind a dark, polished wood desk - made, like most of his office furniture, by convicts in one of the facility-run industrial shops - Graham expressed mild surprise to learn a first-time visitor to the facility might feel anxious passing through its electronic and leaden metal doors. Inmates' daily routines, he insisted, are just that - routine.

“You'd be surprised they are in prison,” he said. Pressed, he modified his statement to say his is not a normal work environment - but an inherently dangerous one.

“Every day I have an inmate or an employee not being injured is a good day,” he said. “I take that very seriously.”

That said, 28 years in the system has made him confident operating in a walled and barred surrounding, where tension levels naturally fluctuate between staff and a group of people being held behind the walls, more or less, against their collective will.

“I'm comfortable anywhere I walk,” he said.

Graham, a simultaneously no-nonsense and affable administrator, wears a signature military-style crew cut and keeps a set of multicolored plastic baby keys on a ring at his desk. The keys were a gag gift presented by a staffer at Coxsackie - a maximum-security facility south of Albany where Graham spent nearly eight years as the deputy of security prior to taking over at Auburn last year. Graham said when the whole facility underwent re-keying one year, the locksmith told him, “I did yours first.”

Long-time ACF staffers and DOCS employees share Graham's assessments of life and work behind the prison walls. They seem in some fundamental respects, to have institutionalized: a term usually reserved for inmates to describe the process of adaptation and, ultimately, resignation, to their surroundings.

“This is a small town inside the walls,” said Captain John Rourke - a third-generation employee at the facility. Between he, his father and grandfather before him, stands nearly 100 years of experience at the prison.

Rourke's and Graham's estimations fall in line with the state report issued this past April on prison safety. Enhancements made from the points of prisoners' entry to release have seen inmate populations at an all-time low and violence on a downward trend. Safety measures have included proper categorization and placement of inmates, consistent medical care, increased spending on accommodations for mentally ill inmates, a multi-tiered disciplinary system and incentives for good behavior.

Auburn plays host to one of two correctional facilities in the county - Cayuga Correctional Facility in Moravia is the other. CCF - a medium security prison that currently holds 1,010 inmates, according to DOCS, employs 241 corrections officers. As of last month, ACF had 500 corrections officers on staff, overseeing 1,757 inmates.

Numbers indicate assaults on inmates and staff have dropped over the last decade in both facilities.

Graham said the state average for assaults on inmates is at 14 percent. His facility is at 19 percent.

“As a maximum facility, we're going to be a little higher in comparison to a medium security (prison), but we average about the same,” he said.

Departmental employees, experts and advocates - along with Graham - attributed much of the drop to more aggressive criminal prosecution of inmates for assaults.

“That's been a deterrent,” said Jack Beck of the Correctional Association of New York, a private, nonprofit group that advocates around criminal justice policy. Beck, an attorney, heads the organization's Prison Visiting Project, which sends committees each month to one of New York's corrections facilities, to observe and interview inmates and staff. Teams report their findings to prison superintendents, and disseminate written reports to officials at DOCS and state lawmakers.

Beck said public perception of convicts versus law enforcement often determines whether inmates will engage prison staffers in a physical struggle.

“Inmates believe if they get into something with an officer, even if the officer is the aggressor, the inmate will lose,” he said.

Representatives from NYSCOPBA did not return calls for comment for this story.

A Cayuga County jury illustrated the department's proactive stance most recently this past June, when it convicted 25-year-old Khaliq Clark, a former ACF inmate, for a Feb. 2005 attack on a corrections officer. Clark had refused to identify himself in the facility's south cafeteria, charging at two officers and causing injuries to one at whom he ultimately lunged. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, consecutive to an 11- to 22-year prior sentence for manslaughter in the Queens borough of New York City.

“We will aggressively seek prosecution for attacks,” said Linda Foglia, a DOCS spokesperson. She referred to aggressive prosecution as one in a series of “management tools” implemented to augment security at state-run prisons.

“Assaults will not be tolerated,” she said.

The subject of tolerance in state prisons seems to be a matter of debate. Department employees, along with ACF staffers and inmates commenting for this article, united in their confidence around state policy and procedure - even as advocates pointed to complaints of verbal abuse and intimidation they said their offices consistently document. Inmates, advocates say, fear retaliation, primarily in the form of “tickets” - demerits that can take away privileges, jobs and even increase time on a prisoner's sentence.

“There are no limits on penalties an inmate can receive for prison violations,” said Betsy Sterling, an attorney with Prisoners Legal Services, an inmate advocacy group. Sterling's work focuses primarily on the population of inmates with serious mental health issues, and she has taken up the cause around Special Housing Units, or SHUs - disciplinary housing for inmates who require separation for misbehavior. Inmates remain in self-contained pens, which contain toilets and showers, 23 hours a day. They have no contact with other inmates and little interaction with staff, other than to get meals and be let out onto individual patios.

“We call them dog runs,” Sterling said, stressing that inmates in disciplinary housing remain idle most of the day.

Gov. Pataki released funds in the 1990s to construct 100 double-occupancy SHU cells (dubbed “S-Blocks”) on the grounds of eight medium security facilities - including Cayuga - 750 double-occupancy SHU cells at maximum-security Upstate Correctional Facility and another 750 double-occupancy cells at the maximum-security Five Points Facility.

Referencing a recent report Jack Beck's program issued last year after a series of visits to the Auburn Correctional Facility, Sterling pointed out 60 percent of inmates in SHUs at ACF are on the caseload for the Office of Mental Health - inmates whose mental and emotional stresses she said require levels of care and treatment higher than what SHU staffers are equipped to offer. Medication and minimal counseling, she said, is often not enough. As inmates in isolation are 100 percent dependent on corrections staff for their every basic need (this includes showering, seeing a doctor, receiving food and mail, and getting an hour outdoors), pressures to inmates and officers increase.

“As tension accelerates, there's an impact on how officers respond to that,” Sterling said. Those tensions fuel what might be considered minor upsets in routine. An inmate's refusal to shower, for instance, can earn him a ticket and more time in the SHU. Sterling said she has clients at ACF who have stayed in SHU units for more than their maximum time.

“There's no middle ground in the system,” she said. “Either you're punished with isolated housing or you're not.”

Beck agreed. A report the Prison Visiting Project issued in July 2005 after a committee's visits to ACF cited staff and inmate descriptions of widespread tensions in the prison - tensions that on occasion erupted into abuse. While those interviewed acknowledged some more experienced officers as “respectful and helpful to inmates,” younger officers abused their authority via provocation or intimidation of inmates. Overly aggressive frisks, the arbitrary issuance of tickets for SHU confinement or loss of privileges, or denial of food or recreation seemed routine.

The report emphasized a practice Beck's team identified as particular to Auburn, “... in which officers sometimes grasp the arms of an inmate without warning when initiating a frisk, incapacitating the inmate before putting him against the wall to be searched.”

The Visiting Project committee gave the facility mixed reviews, having had positive things to report as well. Inmates, they said, expressed satisfaction with its intermediate care unit (ICP), a level of mental health care that seems to offer safer surroundings for mentally ill and compliant prisoners than general population cells. At the time, the team understood expansion and renovation of that unit was in the planning stages. In addition, the committee was pleased to see nursing staff employed by the Office of Mental Health distribute psychotropic medications, rather than leaving that responsibility to prison medical staff.

Also, the prison's vocational programs - including the barber shop, computer repair, and the Corcraft industry program that manufactures license plates for New York State - earned the program's high praise.

The plate shop - three floors trafficked primarily by inmates working on million-dollar-plus machines that sheet and emboss, stamp and bake between 60,000 and 70,000 aluminum plates a day - is a source of pride among staffers and inmates. The plate shop offers among the highest paying wages inmates can hope to earn during their time at the facility - 45 cents an hour. Inmate employees work their way up to that pay grade as they earn the trust and esteem of their superiors.

William Hauser did just that, when the superintendent of industry programs, Bill Weaver, recently pulled him from the embossing unit and made him a shipping clerk. With a 100-percent bonus for production, Hauser - serving a sentence for homicide - earns $44 a week. Bespectacled and wan at 54, Hauser was transferred to Auburn from another facility in 1992. He will not come up before a parole board until 2025, and even then, he said, “who knows?

“I don't expect to be released,” he said. Hauser has, for all intents and purposes, institutionalized. This is his life now, his cell and his work. He does not participate in any of Auburn's educational programs.

“I don't think it would be beneficial to me,” he said, not thinking about rehabilitation as much as just getting by. Weaver nodded. Hauser's resignation echoed a familiar note.

“A lot of inmates feel that way, ” he said, noting that few who go before the board are paroled. Having worked for the state the last 16 years and at Auburn since last July, Weaver resembles a stockier version of Hauser. Mild-mannered in appearance, he crossed the shop's three floors in the manner of any supervisor, confident the employees were focused on the tasks at hand. He is highly visible among employees, and said he doesn't care so much about their pasts, but more about their current abilities.

The plate shop has been in place at Auburn since 1922 but, as Captain Rourke pointed out, industry has been a tradition at the facility since the Civil War. Auburn, he noted, illustrated progressive American thinking.

“In Europe they were in chains on the walls,” he said. “Here, it's different.”

Rourke, with his family background and years of experience, is considered by staffers to be the facility's de facto historian. His wife also works at the facility.

“It's the only show in town,” he said, speculating the industry shops at the facility may have overtaken other area industries in sheer size. Increased vocational and educational training, along with therapeutic programs, he said, have gone a long way toward reducing violence.

“It runs better than it did when I first started,” he said. “There was more violence in the system and toward the staff.”

Jack Beck agreed that programming is key to stabilizing inmates and reducing tensions. Among recommendations he made to the prior superintendent and to the erstwhile commissioner of DOCS - who retired earlier this month - was the expansion of GED classes to meet increased demand.

Asked whether any of the recommended improvements had been implemented over the last year, Harold Graham was adamant: the state is his only master. Unless the commissioner himself ordered widespread or individual changes, he did not foresee accommodating the Visiting Project's suggestions.

Instead, he proudly pointed to the trust he is working to achieve with inmates at the facility. Calling attention to the many regular and uneventful walks across the south prison yard, when convicts leave their classrooms - books in hand - for their cells, Graham highlighted the few corrections officers present who accompanied inmates. Rigid monitoring, he said, only goes so far.

“You have to have faith in your employees, in their training and in the procedures,” he said.

Prison News and News Articles
About / For Correction Officers:
{ Page 74}

ARTICLE LIST:

Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, a clear and present danger to staff and the community

State Correction Officers Get 11% Boost in Wages; But Arbitrators Rebuff NYSCOPBA Bid To Match Troopers

Cop-killer socked for 42M after winning 15G

Chief of prisons has brush with cops

Assaults on prison officers decline

Great Meadow locked down after Messhall Disturbance

State Correction Officers Get 11% Boost in Wages; But Arbitrators Rebuff NYSCOPBA Bid To Match Troopers

Tier 4 Option

Medical notes required for absent correction officers

Come Help Us...

Female cons file suit 15 claim sex abuse from male guards

EA Minutes/Health Care/ALES - Commentary

Prison worker injured in attack

NOZZOLIO CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF RETROACTIVE BACK PAYMENTS TO STATE’S CORRECTION OFFICERS

Our Correctional Officers Deserve Better Than Hevesi

Muslim prison services adequate, judge rules

State looks into worker absences at prison - Union denies use of job action

Half of prison's employees call in sick

Warmus loses appeal in 'Fatal Attraction' case

Is it really safer behind the walls?

LINKS WITHIN MY SITE:

Prison News and News Articles About / For Correction Officers: { Page 74}

ARTICLE LIST:

Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, a clear and present danger to staff and the community

State Correction Officers Get 11% Boost in Wages; But Arbitrators Rebuff NYSCOPBA Bid To Match Troopers

Cop-killer socked for 42M after winning 15G

Chief of prisons has brush with cops

Assaults on prison officers decline

Great Meadow locked down after Messhall Disturbance

State Correction Officers Get 11% Boost in Wages; But Arbitrators Rebuff NYSCOPBA Bid To Match Troopers

Tier 4 Option

Medical notes required for absent correction officers

Come Help Us...

Female cons file suit 15 claim sex abuse from male guards

EA Minutes/Health Care/ALES - Commentary

Prison worker injured in attack

NOZZOLIO CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF RETROACTIVE BACK PAYMENTS TO STATE’S CORRECTION OFFICERS

Our Correctional Officers Deserve Better Than Hevesi

Muslim prison services adequate, judge rules

State looks into worker absences at prison - Union denies use of job action

Half of prison's employees call in sick

Warmus loses appeal in 'Fatal Attraction' case

Is it really safer behind the walls?

LINKS WITHIN MY SITE:

Prison News and News Articles
About / For Correction Officers:
{ Page 74}