New York prison bill would make it easier to fire abusive guards

New York State's Department of Corrections would have the power to remove abusive guards from its prisons under a bill introduced Monday.

Currently, the commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision does not have the final authority to fire guards accused of serious misconduct and often must defer to outside arbitrators who determine disciplinary outcomes. But the bill, introduced by Sen. Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat, would give the commissioner the final say in such cases.

In a memo accompanying her bill, Ms. Salazar, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, said she drafted the legislation in response to an investigation by The Marshall Project, published last year in collaboration with The New York Times . . The investigation found that New York's prison department often tried but failed to fire corrections officers accused of abuse or of attempting to cover it up. The articles, Ms. Salazar wrote in the memo, “painted a grim picture of a staff disciplinary system that is essentially completely broken and ineffective.”

Drawing on a previously secret state database The study, obtained by the Marshall Project, found that in more than 290 cases over 12 years, New York's prison department tried to fire guards accused of abusing inmates or trying to cover up abuse, but only succeeded to fire 10 percent of those officers.

The current disciplinary system “often allows corrections officers to commit serious abuses with impunity,” Ms. Salazar said in a statement.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, the corrections department and the correctional officers union declined to discuss the legislation. Ms Hochul and the union's leaders are negotiating a new contract.

Many of the officers fired since 2010 turned to private arbitrators, who reinstated three out of four guards fired for or covering up abuse. Found the Marshall Project.

Under the proposed bill, arbitrators would no longer decide cases of serious misconduct, including excessive force, smuggling of contraband or sexual abuse of prisoners. Instead, a hearing officer selected by the commissioner would consider the evidence from the department and the employee union and then recommend any disciplinary action to the corrections commissioner, who would ultimately decide. Ms. Salazar's office said the hearing officer should not be a corrections department employee.

The current system, which has been part of the guards union's contract since 1972, gives the union and the prison system equal say in choosing an arbitrator. That means that “the union representing an accused officer essentially has veto power over the selection of the arbitrator for the case,” according to Ms. Salazar's memo.

Brian Fischer, the former corrections commissioner, praised the bill for drawing attention to the department's inability to fire abusive officers. He said the commissioner should have the final say on officer discipline, as is the practice of the New York State Troopers and the New York City Police Department.

“We are responsible for the safety of both the offender and the staff,” Mr Fischer said. “And if we don't have ultimate control, we're essentially left holding the bag.”

The Marshall Project investigation also found that in many cases of abuse, including attacks that killed or seriously injured inmates, the corrections department made no attempt to discipline officers at all. The report also revealed how guards often worked in groups to cover up attacks by lying to investigators and in official reports.

The bill would seek to break through this “blue wall,” Ms. Salazar said in her memo, by giving the commissioner the power to also fire officers who cover up excessive force by deliberately failing to report it or filing false reports.

Jennifer Scaife, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit that oversees prisons, cited a recent lawsuit alleging torture in a state prison as another reason to pass the law. approve. The lawsuit said officers beat a group of men at one facility and alleged that two of the men were taken to a second prison — the Great Meadow Correctional Facility — and put under water, simulating drowning.

“Allegations of waterboarding at Great Meadow call for reform of the employee disciplinary system,” Ms. Scaife said in a statement. “The head of a state agency should simply have the power to fire anyone found guilty of misconduct.”

Chris Summers, president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, has previously defended the arbitration system.

“We have no influence on the decision the arbitrator makes,” he told The Marshall Project in December. “It is a system that is independent, fair and just.”

Ms. Salazar's bill is very similar to a 2018 proposal from former Governor Andrew Cuomo. The prison guards union fiercely opposed the measure, which failed to pass the Legislature.