By Dan Herbeck
The Buffalo News, N.Y.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — At least three state corrections officers have been injured in an incident described as “chaos” at Collins Correctional Facility on Wednesday, according to state lawmakers who are monitoring the situation, and the union that represents prison guards.
While a full picture of what happened at the prison is not yet available, a spokesman for the union that represents corrections officers said at one point on Wednesday that inmates “controlled” three dormitories at the facility.
The medium security state prison in southern Erie County was locked down late Wednesday morning after the disturbance.
“The Collins Correctional Facility has been locked down for the safety and security of the staff and incarcerated population,” officials of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told The Buffalo News in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. “All staff and incarcerated individuals are accounted for and safe. We have no further comment at this time.”
“At least three” corrections officers were injured in the “chaos” at the prison, according to a press release issued by Assemblyman David DiPietro, R- East Aurora.
Details about the nature of the disturbance have not been disclosed. At one point on Wednesday, inmates controlled three dormitories at Collins, according to James Miller, spokesman for the union that represents state corrections officers.
The 4 Cs of inmate management: Maintaining order involves more than just searching and counting inmates and performing inspections. It involves understanding your inmate population.
When asked if the uprising was an organized effort by inmates or violence that suddenly broke out, Miller said, “We’re not sure what precipitated it.”
The union, known as the New York State Correctional Officers Police Benevolent Association, has been “extremely vocal” about an increase in violence in the state’s prisons, Miller said.
On Dec. 3, the union announced that a total of eight officers had been injured in two separate attacks by violent inmates at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden.
And early last month, the union said two officers required hospital treatment after they were attacked by female inmates at the Albion Correctional Facility for women in Orleans County. One officer was hurt when an inmate hurled an electric iron and hit him in the head, the union said.
Wednesday’s incident prompted the co-director of a prisoner rights group to issue a statement warning that the state’s prisons have become a “powder keg” because of the state’s reported abuse of solitary confinement and other punitive measures.
“New York’s prisons are like a powder keg right now and DOCCS leadership and staff are to blame,” said Jerome Wright, co-director of HALT Solitary Campaign. “They are cutting people’s lifelines with families on the outside through bans on care packages and visiting restrictions, illegally torturing people with prolonged solitary confinement, blocking release for rehabilitated people with endless parole denials ... I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I am terrified that we are on the cusp of Attica 2.0 – of another uprising with deadly results for all involved.”
State Sen. George Borrello, R- Jamestown, also issued a statement, linking the incident to a shortage of officers to guard the state’s prisons.
State officials recently told superintendents at Collins and other state prisons “to treat 70 percent staffing as full staffing,” Borrello said, and to begin plans for permanent cuts in staffing.
The state’s recent actions have created an “unsustainable workload” for state corrections officers, with some officers forced to work double or triple shifts to maintain “bare minimum coverage” in the facilities, Borrello added. He said prison employees are “stretched to the breaking point.”
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