Have you talked to anyone lately who still works at DOCCS? It has turned into a real crapshow.
If things keep going the way they are, we may see 1979 all over again, or even a prison turn upside down. It’s that bad.
No. I've only kept in touch with one other person I worked with at Auburn when I first started in 1980. I meet her and her husband occasionally at the casino near me for lunch. I know Cuomo and Hochul closed several prisons, and she plans on closing at least 6 more. My friend and her husband were volunteering at a Teddy Bear project in Syracuse a month or so ago. At the same venue, the State had two correctional officers set up to get people to sign up to take the exam. I couldn't understand why the State was even bothering to give an exam, because once they close those prisons, all the staff, both uniformed and civilian will be bounced around the State to other facilities, and the people that were recently hired will be terminated or laid off. It happened in 1989 or 1990. They'd brought in extra staff, and promoted officers to Sergeant because certain facilities (mine being one of them), turned one of the gyms into double bunking to alleviate the overcrowding at other prisons. When they cleared the gym of inmates, those jobs went south. Those Sergeants were only in temporary items, and they had to go back to their permanent officer positions at the facility they had been promoted from. They laid off a bunch of new officers then too.