New York Prison Guards Are Walking Off the Job. What’s Behind Their Demands?

Wildcat strikes have spread to over half of the state’s prisons.

JB Nicholas and Chris Gelardi · February 19, 2025

A worker holding up a sign that says "Just a few "Rogue" NYSCOPBA Members"

A striking guard holds up a sign outside Bare Hill Correctional Facility in Franklin County on Tuesday. | JB Nicholas

Staying Focused

Roughly 150 prison officers huddled around burn barrels across the street from Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York as they staged a work stoppage Tuesday afternoon. An hour’s drive south, about three dozen guards used a grove of pine trees to shield themselves from the single-digit cold as they picketed in front of the medium-security Adirondack Correctional Facility.

Clinton, Adirondack, and at least 23 other New York state prisons saw guards walk off the job Tuesday — part of an unsanctioned wildcat strike that began at two western New York facilities this week and quickly spread to over half the prison system. Guards are demanding that the prison agency address chronic understaffing and that the state overturn a solitary confinement reform law.

While guards haven’t mentioned it, the strike also acts as a counter to recent pressure to rein in officers: Since the state released video of guards beating an incarcerated man to death in December, state legislators, advocates, and Governor Kathy Hochul have pushed to increase scrutiny on prison officers and hold abusive guards to account.

Hochul said that she’s prepared to activate the National Guard if the strike isn’t resolved on Wednesday.

“We will not allow these individuals to jeopardize the safety of their colleagues, incarcerated people, and the residents of communities surrounding our correctional facilities,” the governor said, calling the actions “illegal and unlawful.” New York law bars corrections officers from striking.

Striking workers at Clinton Correctional Facility | February 18, 2025 | JB Nicholas

The guards’ union, the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, isn’t officially backing the strike, but told New York Focus on Tuesday that it was hashing things out with Hochul’s office and the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

“The NYSCOPBA executive board met with DOCCS leadership as well as representatives from the governor’s office,” said Matt Keough, the union’s executive vice president. The union discussed the striking workers’ demands and made three requests of its own, Keough said, though he declined to share what those requests were.

“We had a very fruitful conversation and we’re looking for a resolution that puts the members back to work,” he said.

Some skeleton crews appear to be operating prisons where officers are striking. At Adirondack prison, a few guards were seen entering and exiting, and picketing officers said civilian staff, like nurses, were still inside.

The striking guards wouldn’t say anything else to reporters, but their signs spoke for them.

“70% is not 100%” a large sign out of Clinton read — a reference to a recent prison agency directive telling prison superintendents to plan to run on 30 percent staff vacancies.

Read another: “BACK THE BLUE.”

Governor Kathy Hochul, wearing a red turtleneck and blazer, sits at a table with other officials.

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The strike takes place as scrutiny of New York’s prison system reaches levels not seen for decades. In December, Attorney General Letitia James released video of guards at a central New York prison repeatedly punching a handcuffed incarcerated man, who died soon after. The killing of 43-year-old Robert Brooks sparked national outcry, prompting Hochul and DOCCS to announce a suite of reforms.

To formerly incarcerated people, the strikes’ timing is not a coincidence.

“The illegal work stoppages aim to distract from guards’ and staff’s unconscionable lynching and killing of Robert Brooks at Marcy prison, as well as rampant guard brutality and abuse throughout the state,” Jerome Wright, who spent 32 years incarcerated in New York and now co-directs the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, said in a statement.

There’s precedent for that. In 2013, New York City corrections officers responsible for transporting people from Rikers Island stopped working the day an incarcerated person was supposed to testify about a caught-on-video beating he endured at the hands of guards, who were later acquitted. Two years later, DOCCS corrections officers staged a work slowdown after the prison agency tried to fire guards who beat an incarcerated man, breaking both his legs. Those officers pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, avoiding jail time.

Statements from striking guards haven’t mentioned Brooks. Rather, the officers say that they’re the ones who are in danger.

Striking workers at Adirondack Correctional Facility

JB Nicholas

Striking prison guards at Bare Hill Correctional Facility (left) and Adirondack Correctional Facility (right) on Tuesday.

“These members feel like their backs are up against the wall,” Kenny Gold, vice president of the western region of the NYSCOPBA, told the Buffalo-area ABC affiliate Monday morning. “They’re striking because of working conditions. They’ve had a lot of incidents recently, and they don’t believe they’re being heard.”

The guards have outlined 13 demands for the prison agency. Many relate to staffing levels and recent reform laws.

Topping the list of demands is the reversal of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act. HALT, which went into effect in 2022, severely curtailed the use of traditional solitary confinement — though it still allows prisons to isolate incarcerated people whom staff deem dangerous.

Corrections officers have complained about rising violence since HALT went into effect. Reported assaults on staff rose from an average of 93 a month in 2021 to 173 a month last year.

Some formerly incarcerated people, like Thomas Kearney, cast doubt on those numbers.

“They control the statistics,” Kearney told New York Focus last week. He said that, in the mid-2000s, officers at Attica prison beat him while he was handcuffed, breaking his ribs. They then reported Kearney for an assault on staff, he said.

“These members feel like their backs are up against the wall.”

—Kenny Gold, NYSCOPBA

Similarly, lawsuits filed on behalf of 46 incarcerated people assert that officers at Green Haven Correctional Facility staged an eight-day beatdown in 2023. Guards went cell-by-cell, the suits allege, to conduct contraband searches — then tackled and attacked incarcerated people. Two people claim that officers waterboarded them. Many of the plaintiffs in that lawsuit said that, though they were the victims, guards wrote them up for violence or assault.

DOCCS responded to strikers’ topline demand by pointing out that reversing HALT requires the state legislature to pass a new law. It’s one of several striker demands that are out of the DOCCS administration’s control, the agency said.

According to Keough of NYSCOPBA, union leaders asked whether Hochul could unilaterally suspend solitary confinement reforms. “Her counsel’s office said they would have to see if she even has the authority to do that,” he said.

Many of the other demands relate to staffing levels. DOCCS has one of the highest guard-to-prisoner ratios in the country, but a nationwide shortage of law enforcement recruits, an increasingly diffuse incarcerated population, and workers’ compensation abuse has led to understaffed prison blocks, with guards complaining that they’re forced to work double and triple shifts.

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Last week, DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello instructed prison superintendents to draft plans to run their facilities with reduced staffing levels. “70% of our original staffing model is the new 100%,” he wrote in a memorandum. The strikers are demanding that he rescind that order.

They also want the state to consider a number of recruitment ideas, most of which revolve around increased pay. DOCCS responded that most of those proposals would require legislation or modifying the latest collective bargaining agreement, which raised starting pay for new corrections officers by $6,500. The guards’ union ratified that contract less than a year ago, with 73 percent of those who cast ballots voting in favor of it.

The state has tried to alleviate staffing shortages by closing prisons and consolidating their staff at other facilities; guards have protested the closures. DOCCS said it has been exploring other ways to increase staffing levels, launching regional recruitment initiatives and lobbying the state legislature to pass legislation allowing the department to hire people who live out-of-state.

“There is always room for progress and for disagreements and we welcome continued dialogue with the union at the table,” Martuscello said in a statement Tuesday. “I am urging all those on strike to end this job action.”