Hochul Quietly Nominates a Permanent Prison Chief

Update: May 23, 2024 — On Wednesday, the Senate corrections and finance committees voted to move forward with Martuscello’s nomination. On Thursday, the Senate confirmed him, along with a member of the State Commission of Correction, by a vote of 37 to 19.

In many ways, Martuscello is the natural next in line for the job. He’s worked at the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, for nearly three decades, and was the second-in-command for six years before taking over. He seems to be the only candidate the governor considered. A former DOCCS director of reentry, Vanda Seward, had launched an informal campaign for the nomination, backed by a fraternal organization representing Black law enforcement officers. She said that she requested an audience with the governor’s office — which did not respond to questions before press time — but received no response.

“We find it troubling that the process was not fair, transparent, and inclusive,” the fraternal organization, known as the Grand Council of Guardians, wrote in a letter to legislators.

Officials who interact with Martuscello describe him as sharp, with a wealth of institutional knowledge. He’s “very professional and clearly has necessary experience,” Patrick Gallivan, the top Republican on the Senate corrections committee, said over text.

Others view his time near the top as a liability. DOCCS, which incarcerates some 32,000 people with long felony sentences and monitors the state’s parolees, is routinely embroiled in scandals ranging from violence to abuse to corruption. In a letter sent to the governor and state legislators Tuesday, dozens of advocacy and legal groups argued that “Acting Commissioner Martuscello is deeply entrenched in, and continues to perpetuate, the deplorable status quo of the racist, brutal, and corrupt state prison system.”

Among the letter’s more recent examples is a lockdown at Green Haven Correctional Facility that took place in October, on Martuscello’s watch. Incarcerated people allege that DOCCS security forces descended on the facility, punching them in their faces, kicking their genitals, gouging their eyes, and slamming their heads against walls. Two men claim that guards waterboarded them. The acting commissioner told the press that an instance of “incarcerated against incarcerated” violence spurred the lockdown, but has shared no details since.

Martuscello has pitched himself as a reformer, fielding policy ideas from prisoners’ rights advocates and promising to increase programs available to incarcerated people, advocates said. Decision-makers have found his campaign compelling.

“He truly seems to care about making DOCCS work better for everyone, including and especially incarcerated individuals,” Julia Salazar, chair of the Senate corrections committee, told New York Focus this month. She pointed to Martuscello’s near-immediate rescinding of a likely illegal directive his predecessor put in place, which ordered guards to shackle people sentenced to isolation for hours during classroom-style programming. While Salazar is pushing for rapid changes at DOCCS, observers should have “reasonable expectations” about how much one person can overhaul a 44-facility prison agency in less than a year, she said.

Salazar’s impression likely matters more than anyone’s. As head of the relevant committee, she holds particular sway over the outcome of Wednesday’s initial confirmation vote — power she’s flexed in the past. In 2022, she helped lead a group of legislators in rejecting Martuscello’s predecessor’s nomination, citing what they saw as evidence of illegal prison conditions and unchecked violence during his tenure. The predecessor, Anthony Annucci, was allowed to remain acting commissioner, unconfirmed, until his retirement.