A rally of support in 2023 included state Sen. George Borrello with corrections officers and their families in Collins. File photo

Upheaval inside the walls of the New York state prison system is not something that occurred suddenly. Warning signs were beginning close to home at Collins Correctional Facility in the spring of 2023.

That is when more than a dozen officers were injured at Collins Correctional Facility over a 10-day period as inmate violence began its surge at the medium security correctional facility, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association Inc. reported. “In April eight staff were injured in four separate attacks at Collins Correctional Facility and it is apparent that May will follow suit,” said Kenny Gold, Western Region Vice President for NYSCOPBA almost two years ago. “For most outside observers, they would assume since Collins is a medium security prison, it is relatively free of violence. To the contrary, many of the most serious assaults on staff occur at medium security facilities. The reality is, the inmate population that remains as a result of criminal justice reform in New York, is extremely violent.”

Most of the increase in incidents has been tied to the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement — the HALT Act. Beginning in April 2022, it restricted the use of segregated imprisonment and created alternative therapeutic and rehabilitative options. Additionally, it limits the length of time a person may be in segregated and excludes certain persons from being placed in segregated incarceration.

It sounds well intentioned. However, these are convicted individuals who are being dealt with on a daily basis — not those who are being released without bail due to reforms that began in January 2020.

From April to June 2023 alone, the OBSERVER and Post-Journal reported on the injuries of at least 27 individuals injured due to attacks on staff at Collins. After the “lockdown” in the middle of February, the sentiment of state employees — especially those who have shown up on time often to work multiple shifts — had reached a boiling point.

On Presidents’ Day, Feb. 17, the Western New York location began a strike that has since gone statewide, crippling the system and forcing the National Guard to respond to the underserved locations. Before that labor action, New York state’s white-collar leadership had given the topic little attention — almost blind to the predicaments facing its corrections officers.

State Sen. George Borrello was not of that mindset. Borrello, in fact, was one of the first elected officials in New York to bring attention to the issue after the incidents.

In October 2023, he joined officers and their families in Collins at a press conference to denounce a decision by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to host a celebration for inmates and their families amid increasing inmate-on-staff violence and deteriorating working conditions for correctional officers.

“It is outrageous that while our hardworking correctional officers are being assaulted and injured in record numbers and whose own family lives are suffering because of extraordinary amounts of forced overtime, DOCCS has expended its focus and resources on planning a celebration for inmates and their children and a ‘pampering’ event for wives and girlfriends,” he said then. “If we needed another reminder that Albany’s priorities have shifted away from those who enforce our laws and toward those who break our laws, here it is. They have turned our criminal justice system into a farce.”

Unfortunately, those statements made more than 15 months ago appear too prophetic. No one at that rally could have seen the strike coming.

That brings us back to the state capital. Its negotiations — and compassion for its workers over the last year and a half — seem hollow.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has kept her distance, minimally addressing the issue while spending more time fretting over how President Donald Trump is running Washington. In calling for the employees to return to their jobs last month, she did so while in the comfort of a controlled press conference that included amenities of indoor heating and lighting.

Striking corrections officers, on the flip side, were so fed up with the hazardous working conditions they were enduring that they felt safer in the harsh winter elements of single-digit temperatures than being in heated prisons. Those actions alone were a dramatic statement.

Today, despite an agreement reached by NYSCOPBA and the state, many of these officers have not returned and are in limbo. Under the Taylor Law, strikes are illegal and state officials have said it will terminate and eliminate the health insurance of those who do not return to work.

As of Wednesday night, a state DOCCS spokesman noted there had been 20 termination letters sent to correction officers or sergeants and about 5,200 letters have been sent to staff notifying them their health insurance coverage is canceled. However, some staff have returned to work and the coverage is being reinstated.

Officials estimated across the 32 facilities affected, 7,500 are still striking. “We have had approximately 2,500 staff return to duty,” the spokesman said, “and we welcome them back.”

A slow process for sure. One that had been simmering for too long.

John D’Agostino is editor of The Post-Journal, OBSERVER and Times Observer in Warren, Pa. Send comments to jdagostino@observertoday.com or call 716-487-1111, ext. 253.