When Jaquan Myers was sent to the Franklin Correctional Facility infirmary last summer, bleeding and hyperventilating, he knew he couldn’t do anything about the incident that landed him there.

At least three guards had pulled his hair, choked him, and smashed his face against a wall before pepper spraying him and throwing him into a van, he said. Before the assault, he’d filed grievances against one of the guards, who’d repeatedly denied him recreational time.

Myers was too terrified to file a complaint about the assault — especially because his only proof was his injuries. There were no cameras in the processing room where they beat him up or the van where they stashed him, he said, and the guards who attacked him weren’t equipped with body-worn cameras.

“Cameras make a big difference because they show both sides,” Myers told New York Focus.

Franklin Correctional Facility is one of the more than 30 New York state prisons that lack full camera coverage, according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, even though the agency launched a statewide prison camera program a decade ago. Around then, DOCCS also launched one of the nation’s first prison body-worn camera initiatives, but as of October, only seven of 42 facilities had body cameras for every guard on duty.

Governor Kathy Hochul sparked confusion about New York’s role in deportation operations this week when her office released a list of four broad circumstances under which state officials can collaborate with federal immigration enforcement.

Her office told Gothamist that the state may cooperate with the feds when someone is “suspected of an immigration crime” or convicted of a state-level crime — categories far more sweeping than Hochul’s past comments suggesting that the state will only help the new presidential administration deport people convicted of “serious” offenses.

Experts aren’t sure whether to interpret the list as a change in state policy. The governor’s office did not answer questions from New York Focus about whether the list represents a new policy or whether state agencies had been notified about it, but said it was in line with an existing state executive order that limits collaboration between the state and federal immigration enforcement.

Last year, 278 New Yorkers died waiting for a kidney transplant. In recent years, the toll has been as high as 533. The deaths are a sad but constant presence in a transplant system where the waiting list is roughly six times longer than the list of donors.

A measure in Governor Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal, released last week, aims to boost donations by offering a tax break of up to $10,000 to reimburse donors for the costs associated with their lifesaving gift.

It wouldn’t be necessary if New York state’s Department of Health had implemented a 2022 law meant to achieve the same goal.