Day 11 Prison Strike: Not Ending Any Time Soon. Increase In Officers Striking. A Recap
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The prison strike is in Day 11 and is not letting up any time soon. In fact, the number of Corrections Officers striking is increasing, according to this Cease and Desist court document that was served to them (possibly served illegally if it was served on a Sunday and/or left on a porch or somewhere else, according to one Fishkill Correctional Officer who spoke with ALBB).
“As of Sunday, February 23, 2025, the number of correctional facilities with officers on strike has risen to thirty-eight (38). The number of officers participating in the strike has also risen dramatically since February 18, 2025,” New York State Department Of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) states as the petitioner in their order for Corrections Officers to return to work immediately.
New York State says the strike is illegal under the Taylor Law that says state employees cannot strike. Corrections Officers dispute that. One officer told ALBB: “What we are doing, the courts are going to find that what we are doing is not illegal. There is an exemption to the Taylor law. If the reason for the strike is working in extremely dangerous working conditions.”
ALBB observed to one of our sources that these officers didn’t seem like the protesting types. Our source agreed, and said they are very scared. This week, SCAB posters were zip-tied to the street signs along Matteawan Road, which is the road to both the prison and the school. The literal school-to-prison pipeline.
The posters were removed. These officers popped up with more posters in their hands, to psychically stand there if the posters were going to get cut down again. One officer wears a rat mask with red eyes, which symbolizes a person working through a strike. The officers are trying to encourage their fellow officers to strike in order to end the strike sooner (read about that here).
Seeing these officers standing here on the street corner - a new location, as they are normally on Rte. 52 at the other end of this road - it is clear they are getting the hang of this protest thing. Their signs read:
No One Is Safe Inside
It’s Not Too Late: Join Us
Stop The 24 Hour Mandates
Repeal H.A.L.T.
Why Are The Corrections Officers Striking?
Before we get into that, let’s ask:
Who Are The Corrections Officers?
For those new to Beacon, you will learn that Beacon is surrounded by prisons. Therefore, there is a large employment population here of Corrections Officers (COs) - people who work in the prisons. There are also people who prepare meals, do administrative jobs, etc.
There are also retired Corrections Officers. Sometimes they enjoy their retirement and have long lunches, and sometimes they find other jobs, like as security guards in the public schools. Is it fair that they are earning pension and a salary, when some people just want to earn a salary? That is a topic for another time.
Where Do They Work?
In Beacon, some work at the Fishkill Correctional Facility, or at the Dutchess County Justice and Transition Center, or other places. One formerly incarcerated person, Ryan Manzi (the Free Palestine chalk artist), describes the Dutchess County facility as “a 💩 way of making a poorly run jail facility sound less offensive.”
Ok. So Why Are The Corrections Officers Striking?
Both formerly incarcerated people and the officers have told ALBB that life inside the jail is like the Wild West. Violent and unfair. For both the officers and the incarcerated people. For the latter, their stories sometimes make it out, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they die. For officers, because they are in power, their gripes don’t usually make the news.
Until now. “We come out here because we can’t deal with it anymore,” one Fishkill Correctional Office told ALBB. “We are working for a lawless state agency. DOCCS is violating our contract by failing to maintain safe staffing levels inside.” DOCCS has declared that staffing to 70% is the new 100%. For reasons unknown, DOCCS will pay officers overtime on the regular, and without the officers’ permission, but won’t hire as many officers as they need. Recruitment is also an issue, because who wants to work in these conditions.
The officer went onto describe several violent scenarios that happen on a daily basis. “Before H.A.L.T., it was controlled chaos. The Wild West. Fishkill is a war zone on a daily basis. We spend our days running code to code. UI. Unusual Incident. We had 850 UIs last year. When I started, that number was in the mid 200s.” He provided an example: “It’s like Mad Libs. You see the same ones over and over. Guy (incarcerated person) got sliced across the face. Ear cut off. Blood everywhere. But, so many things do not get registered UI. Unless we Narcan the guy, it’s not a UI. If we didn’t have to Narcan him, it’s nothing. No paperwork on him.”
The officer is referring to what they say is rampant drug use and exposure that comes into the jail from the outside. Which is a major reason why the officers are demanding searches of visitors, and changes in how the mail is sorted. The drugs - like fentanyl and household chemicals made into drugs - are liquefied and put onto the envelope or stamp. The incarcerated person then receives the mail, touches the drugs, and gets high, sometimes dangerously so. Officers also can come into contact with the drugs, and also get high. It is common now, the officer says, to Narcan a fellow officer to bring them out of a overdose while sorting the mail.
The Demands Of The Officers
Corrections Officers were protesting several safety issues, including:
Corrections Officers are demanding the repeal of the H.A.L.T. Act, which was
Mandated 24hr shifts. Officers are locked into their hallways once told that they have to stay past their shift. They are not given a choice.
Mandated Overtime. They are paid to stay, but they are not agreeing to it.
Exposure to fentanyl through mail sorting methods.
DOCCS being “lawless” and abusing officers. Said the Fishkill Corrections Officer to ALBB: “DOCCS is harassing officers out on workers compensation who are laying in hospital beds reviving from knee replacements, surgeries, incidents at work by being assaulted by inmates or falling down stairs in buildings DOCCS owns but doesn’t maintain. DOCCS demands they come back to work. Even though the doctor says they are in no condition to do anything.”
Unmaintained equipment: “They [incarcerated people] break the chairs. $7,000 for a chair. There is not a wheelchair or striker chair in working condition in the Fishkill Correctional Facility,” the officer told ALBB. “After a fight between incarcerated people, we got to drag a guy in a broken wheelchair between buildings for medical treatment. We have to sit on him for 30 mins to make sure he’s OK. Then release him back into the population because he can’t go into the SHU (Special Housing Unit) to be protected against the guy who beat him because H.A.L.T. makes it so difficult to get him in there.”
Speaking of H.A.L.T.: “We had 40 charges we could use, now we have 6 charges to choose from. He would have to do something very violent to get put into SHU if he wants to go in there to get away from another inmate.”
Repeal of H.A.L.T. Act. This was a bill signed into law to create more humane and therapeutic ways of responding to incarcerated people, where they get put into the SHU (Special Housing Unit). Corrections Officers refer to this confinement as “jail within the jail.” It was punishment based. Bill signers wanted a rehabilitation approach. In practice, however, things seemed to have resulted differently.
The Corrections Officers say they want H.A.L.T. gone. The officer told ALBB: “The inmates do not like H.A.L.T. Nobody wants halt except Albany legislature.” He went onto explain that the incarcerated people used Special Housing Unit to get away from other incarcerated people who have targeted them for rent money inside the jail (there is a hierarchy), ordered cut hits on other incarcerated people, and other situations.
According to the bill: “This bill will be known as the "Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement" Act (the H.A.L.T. Solitary Confinement Act.) This bill would limit the time an inmate can spend in segregated confinement, end the segregated confinement of vulnerable people, restrict the criteria that can result in such confinement, improve conditions of confinement, and create more humane and effective alternatives to such confinement.” The bill also makes it illegal to use special or modified food diet as a punishment.
Some Corrections Officers are saying they have lost the ability to “punish” inmates for violence to other incarcerated people or officers. Other Corrections Officers are saying they have lost the ability to protect a beaten incarcerated person from their aggressor.
Violence to both inmates and officers is on the rise, according a breakdown presented by Spectrum News.
