Osborne Association Responds to the Growing Crisis in New York Prisons

Osborne Association is on the ground at 39 of New York’s 42 prisons. Programs we run vary by site but include parenting and relationship education, reentry planning, video visiting, and hospitality and family centers that aid family members coming to see their loved ones.

We are funded in large part by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to do this work in a complex partnership that is nevertheless built on the trust we’ve established over decades with incarcerated people and their families, and with correction officers and DOCCS administration. One thought-provoking class, one productive meeting with a reentry specialist, one opportunity for play and bonding with a visiting child – all can have a humanizing, steadying effect for our participants that can also contribute to a calmer and safer work environment for staff.

No one feels calm or safe in New York prisons after the killing of Robert Brooks, the unauthorized strikes by correction officers, and the decision by Governor Hochul to deploy the National Guard. And no wonder. No incarcerated person should ever die at the hands of those charged with their care, and no one responsible should escape accountability. No one working back-to-back shifts away from their families should be expected to continue without reprieve.

Our prisons are in crisis. In such moments, leaders must make the best decisions they can, and relevant laws – including prohibitions on walking off the job and limits on the use of solitary confinement as punishment – apply.

Clearly, conditions must change, starting with the need to ensure that incarcerated people receive food and medicine, attention to medical needs in or out of facilities, and access to the outside world through Wi-Fi, phone calls, and in-person and virtual visits. Members of the National Guard must fulfill their highest purpose by providing protection and serving the community, as they step in to assist exhausted prison staff.

In our view, decarceration of older adults, who now make up 20% of the prison population and have the lowest rates of recidivism and highest cost to incarcerate at a minimum of $115,000 annually, is one of the solutions at hand. Alternatives to incarceration and reentry programs that cost far less than incarceration and address the circumstances that can lead to law-breaking are another.

The confluence of events – the strikes, deployment of the National Guard, and today’s unsealing of indictments – is suspiciously timed for some and convenient for others as a new push for maximalist carceral policy grips the state, threatening to derail the progress we’ve made to promote safety and improve this system.

It is also budget season, and the Governor’s priorities have been made plain. More security cameras. More body-worn cameras. More money to support special investigations. All of which will cost 15 times what we’re requesting to support alternatives to incarceration and reentry programs, which can serve about seven people for every one person sent to prison. We must rethink our approach.

In the end, the inescapable truth these events may expose is that no one with any reasonable choices wants to work or live in a prison. Until we reckon with that, we will continue to misdirect resources, perpetuate trauma, and fail everyone caught up in an unjust system. As ever, Osborne Association stands ready to support the individuals, families, and communities harmed by that system.