After his second debilitating injury at work, Derrick Baker decided it was time to retire.

Baker had worked in juvenile detention for 29 years, most recently as a supervisor at Crossroads, one of two New York City–run centers troubled by routine violence and workforce injuries. In November 2022, he tore the tendons and cartilage in both of his arms and reinjured a knee that had undergone joint replacement when he intervened in a scuffle with an incarcerated youth.

Within a day, Baker filed a claim for workers’ compensation, the state program that provides medical treatment for injuries on the job and cash for recovery time. But to get his benefits, Baker first had to get a workers’ comp insurance provider to accept his case.

Unbeknownst to him, he was stuck with the insurance carrier that had amassed more penalties for mishandled and delayed cases than any other in the state: the city of New York.

New York’s prison population has been declining for decades, and at a faster pace than the national prison population — from a high of over 70,000 in 1999 to about 33,500 today. As a result, New York shuttered 24 prisons in the two decades leading to 2023, and a provision in this year’s state budget allowed the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to quickly close up to five more. It has so far pulled the trigger on two: the notorious Great Meadow prison, just north of Albany, and Sullivan Correctional Facility, near the Catskills.

Meanwhile, some facilities are operating far below capacity. When the Great Meadow closure was announced, for instance, it employed more security personnel than it housed incarcerated people. Rural communities whose economies depend on a local prison are up in arms about well-paying state government jobs moving elsewhere.

How did we get here?

New York’s push for electric school buses by 2027 has districts across the state struggling with voter approval and funding.

“The opportunity to make meaningful, impactful change for The Bronx is slipping away.”

As e-commerce has driven rapid growth in the industry — which added tens of thousands of jobs around the state in recent years — labor advocates are pressing Governor Kathy Hochul to sign a bill that would require warehouses to develop plans to keep workers safe.