As assaults between inmates and correction officers continue to rise over the last 10 years in New York, advocates and former inmates say each side involved needs to change to reverse the trend.
Robert ‘Luca’ Lucas, who was incarcerated for seven years and founded Voice of the Voiceless, a nonprofit that supports inmates and those who have been released, says unsubstantiated allegations fly from both sides.
“We realize that it’s a lot of inconsistencies on both sides,” Lucas said. “We don’t come at it from a biased position. When somebody gets on the phone with us and says accusations like, ‘the officer did this,’ we have to go through numerous procedures to be able to verify this.”
Correction officers often work long hours, and according to data from the Correctional Association of New York, there is a system-wide vacancy rate of 26%. Lucas said this can contribute to tensions between the inmates and staff.
“He feels like life is not giving him a break so because I’m forced to be in this environment to my mental wellness and for what I feel justice looks like to me, and when you have individuals that have the power to put justice in their own hands. We have to be real with society and realize that people are going to misuse and abuse that authority,” Lucas said.
Lucas recalls an interaction he had with a woman who he calls “Miss Flanigan” who ran the orientation program during his time in Mohawk Correctional.
“She made it clear to me that it was on both sides. She didn’t condone the bad apples, but she made it clear that the bad apples have so much of a strong hold on the rest of the people in the facility. It’s like you have to respect the people that are willing to step up in dangerous situations,” Lucas said.
He said if people were more willing to speak up against the “bad apples,” then some of these situations would not happen.
Voice of the Voiceless co-founder, Matthew Miller, who was incarcerated at a young age and inside for 10 years, said that with the right programs in place, creating more positivity in these facilities would benefit both the incarcerated and the staff.
“If you can be redirected from the mistake you made as a kid or even as a young adult, it will be a lot more peaceful,” Miller said. “People will have a purpose. People will have things to look forward to when they give us something. It’s a give and take.”
Shakeal Hendricks, currently incarcerated at Auburn Correctional Facility, said in a phone interview he would like to see more transparency between the incarcerated and the staff.
“We come to prison for something we did wrong to pay society a debt. We don’t come to prison to be utilized or punished within a punishment that we already endure,” Hendricks said. “If the officers and the incarcerated individuals can come together and recognize that y’all are still human, y’all still matter. We understand y’all did a crime and came to jail but y’all not monsters. A lot of people have to work on that, not just the officers, the incarcerated individuals as well.”
Hendricks echoed that not all correction officers are “bad apples,” but a few can taint the bunch.
“I don’t know about every other one, but in this facility there’s some human beings in here. I’m giving credit where credit is due. There’s some people here, correctional officers, that do right when they should do right and you got the ones that do wrong when they should do right,” he said.
Lucas said he would like those working in the prison system to understand the importance of their jobs.
“Realize you have one of the most important jobs in our country because you have the ability to actually give somebody the reason to want to keep being,” Lucas said. “If you know the problem, and you’re not part of the solution, then you become part of the problem.”
Increased training and resources
Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit that serves as a watchdog for the New York state prison system, said the de-escalation training needs to be emphasized multiple times, not just once when a guard is hired.
“I think these are things that need to be retrained, and staff need to be equipped with tools,” Scaife said. “A lot of the things that we hear from effective people who work in prisons is that the best tool you have is your mouth to communicate effectively and to really influence the kind of behavior that you want to see without having to resort to punishment or force.”
For those who work in facilities that house people with mental health difficulties, Scaife said DOCCS offers training once a year, but it should be open to more employees.
“We think that even more staff would benefit from receiving additional training around mental health, and some of the symptoms and behaviors that are associated with that, which can often be misunderstood as aggressive or defiant even,” Scaife said.
Cliff Ryan Jr. spent about 12 years incarcerated and was released last summer. He said there are ways to improve relationships between the staff and the incarcerated.
“Certainly, the training of the correctional staff, there needs to be a social structure or some kind of curriculum, not to the point of them being counselors but to the point of them becoming something other than security staff,” Ryan said. “Communication is important when you want to get things done.”
In addition, Ryan said DOCCS should improve how the inmates can interact with other members of society. But ultimately, he believes that if DOCCS wanted to improve that, things would already have been better.
“If the system really wanted things to be as they say they wanted it to be, it would be, and everything that’s going on I feel is more of a smoke screen,” he said.
