By Alex Gault
Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
WATERTOWN, N.Y. — One of the north country’s representatives in Albany is hoping he can help bolster recruitment and staff retention at the region’s prisons in an attempt to keep them off of the chopping block as the state closes under-staffed facilities.
This year, state officials secured the power to close up to five prisons with 90 days of notice. Two closures have already been announced — Great Meadow Correctional in Washington County and Sullivan Correctional in Sullivan County. Those two facilities had far fewer incarcerated people in them than their capacity, but also had fewer staff than the state would have liked.
According to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Great Meadow has 182 open correctional officer positions, and Sullivan Correctional has 76. Across the entire state prison system, there are roughly 2,000 open correctional officer positions.
In a letter to corrections staff announcing the closures obtained by the Watertown Daily Times, DOCCS Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello, III, said the closures are primarily driven by staffing challenges.
“Across the (country), correctional agencies continue struggling to meet staffing demands, and the department (DOCCS) is no exception, despite new and aggressive recruitment efforts,” he wrote. “The current reality is our staffing challenges and prevailing excess capacity have resulted in the decision to close these facilities and then utilize staff more effectively to manage the population while we continue to operate the state prison system in a safe and appropriate manner.”
Assemblyman Scott A. Gray, R- Watertown, said he has a plan that could help save the two remaining prisons in his district, as well as the other prisons that border his district whose officers are his constituents.
“Our goal is to attract dedicated professionals committed to the safety, rehabilitation and well-being of incarcerated individuals,” he said. “By becoming active participants in recruitment, we can position the north country to place more people in the system than we employ locally, ensuring we add value to the overall DOCCS system.”
The three prisons in the western north country have fewer open spaces than is average at other prisons in the state — Riverview Correctional in Ogdensburg has 38 open spots. Gouverneur Correctional has 22, and Cape Vincent Correctional in Jefferson County has 58 open correctional officer spots.
Gray said that by putting more efforts into recruitment, bringing more community resources in to connect people with jobs in the state prison system, the north country prisons could become a major driver for staff throughout the system.
“What we’re trying to do is be value-added for DOCCS,” he said. “If their number one mission is recruitment, and that’s the reason they’re closing facilities, then we, my office, want to be partners to try and avoid that.”
He said he wants the north country prisons to become “employment-plus,” where there are more people interested in working at the facilities than there are staff openings — turning the region into both a major producer of corrections staff for the whole prison system while also ensuring the local prisons remain open and well staffed.
Overall, Gray has been critical of the decision to close state prisons, especially in his region of the north country that has seen two major facilities in Watertown and Ogdensburg closed within about a year of one another. He said ongoing closures, with new pushes to close facilities announced almost annually, will just make the staffing problems worse, while also demoralizing the communities that host these prisons.
“Nothing is more demoralizing than having a constant, never-ending threat of closures,” he said. “Imagine what an annual threat of SUNY campus closures would look like, and the enrollment problems it would cause. Such instability is bad public policy and undermines the confidence in our correctional system.”
He urged other groups in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties to join in his recruitment push, and to continue opposing projected closures.
With two facilities on track to close this year, officials left the door open for up to three more closures before the end of the fiscal year in April 2025.
“If we do not see an increase in recruitment, it may be necessary to consider additional closures within the fiscal year,” Martuscello wrote in his letter to DOCCS staff.
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