Sara Kielly, an investigative journalist and poet, reported this article from inside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, where she is currently incarcerated.
On Friday morning, a woman incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County tried to get help. The prison was on lockdown, and she’d been confined to her cell with little information as to why. She said she was having suicidal thoughts, but officers weren’t sending anyone to provide medical attention.
That afternoon, with no guards making their normal security rounds, others on the woman’s block called out to her — to no answer. She was trying to hang herself, officers eventually found. She survived.
The New York state prison system is flirting with chaos as a corrections officer strike enters its sixth day. Since guards at two western New York facilities walked off the job on Monday, the wildcat action has spread across the state. Nearly all of the system’s 42 prisons are now on lockdown as National Guard troops deployed by Governor Kathy Hochul and the few officers who haven’t walked out struggle to provide incarcerated people with basic necessities.
Incarcerated people report varied conditions within the prisons, with some facilities making do while others leave those in their custody hungry, unshowered, and lacking medical attention. The following accounts include reporting directly from Bedford Hills, a maximum security women’s prison where one of this article’s reporters is incarcerated, as well as anecdotes from incarcerated people, their family members, and their advocates across six other facilities.
Bedford Hills was one of the last facilities to go on lockdown. On Thursday afternoon, corrections officers ran into dorms yelling for everyone to lock into their cells. They were angry: One officer threatened that, if the women didn’t move, “we’ll take you down.”
The officers didn’t give a reason for the lockdown, leaving incarcerated people to rely on word of mouth and connections on the outside. Guards sparked further confusion when, on Friday, they lifted the lockdown — then ran in again after 25 minutes ordering everyone back in their cells.
“What is going on,” read an electronic message from another Bedford Hills resident, “please inform us!!”
Meanwhile, at the maximum security Eastern Correctional Facility, people have shared news by shouting out of their cells, according to Caroline Hansen, whose husband is incarcerated there. Through the small window in his cell’s metal door, one man relayed updates about the negotiations between the state and the guards’ union, describing a recent offer from the prison agency commissioner that granted increased overtime pay for employees who didn’t abandon their posts and immunity from discipline for those who returned to them.
Hansen said she’s glad that she’s able to speak with her husband. Many incarcerated people have tablets in their cells that they can use to send messages and make phone calls — though there’s no guarantee that they’ll work. Rissailey Milton said her husband, incarcerated at the medium-security Greene Correctional Facility, complained of sporadic wifi outages.
With the strike and National Guard presence spread unevenly across the system, conditions vary from prison to prison. Panic recently struck northern New York’s Riverview Correctional Facility when outnumbered corrections officers abandoned one dorm. It’s unclear why they fled, but the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which runs the prison system, sent two emergency response teams and State Police officers to “restore order,” the agency said.
Five Points Correctional Facility has been calmer, said Ahmed Greene, who’s incarcerated there. He noted a heavy National Guard presence as guards picketed outside. Some who didn’t join the strike are new hires still on their probationary period, he said. One guard told him he didn’t join because he had a spotty discipline record and was on thin ice, Greene said.
Many who are working are burnt out. Hansen saw one officer she knew when visiting Eastern this week. “She just looked exhausted,” she said. “She was afraid she wasn’t allowed to leave.”
According to Greene, prisoners at Five Points are upset about being confined to their cells, but staff are distributing meals on a normal schedule. They’ve also made the prison commissary mobile, going cell by cell to let incarcerated men buy extra food and other items.
“The guys are pretty calm now with their coffee and cigarettes,” Greene said. Other prisons haven’t made that adjustment: Alexander Contompasis at Upstate Correctional Facility said that, in addition to recreation, religious services, legal calls, visitation, and programming, prison administration has canceled commissary.
At Bedford Hills, some commissary has been available, as have regularly scheduled meals — though they’re ice cold. Still, cold but full meals are more than others could hope for. Naythen Aubain, incarcerated at the maximum security Auburn Correctional Facility, said that, until recently, lockdown meals have consisted of cheese on a hamburger roll. “We were starving,” he said in a message.
Aubain wasn’t let out of his cell to shower for three days, he said. Dee Moshain, whose son is at the same prison, reported the same, as did Hansen’s husband at Eastern.
Medical attention is a main concern among incarcerated people and their families. While Greene reported that Five Points has been letting diabetics out of their cells one by one to get insulin, Hansen said her husband’s blockmate at Eastern is an elderly diabetic who hasn’t been getting his.
Bedford Hills has seen delays in distributing medication and several medical emergencies in the short time since lockdown. In addition to the suicide attempt, one woman had an apparent panic attack. Another had a blood pressure crisis. Women have requested mental health staff, only to be ignored. At one point, an entire corridor of incarcerated people began banging on their cell doors to get officers to respond to a distressed person.
Guards haven’t helped the situation. One threatened to throw troublemakers in solitary confinement.
“Lock the fuck in,” the officer said.