NY Prisons Still Staffed by National Guard Amid Ongoing Vacancies a Year After Strike

Story by Jimmy Vielkind/New York Public News Network

New York’s troubled prison system still has the same number of vacancies as it did a year ago, when thousands of officers walked off the job in an illegal three-week strike.

State Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello acknowledged during a recent budget hearing that his department still has 4,600 unfilled corrections officer positions, despite special recruiting campaigns and less stringent hiring requirements.

As a result, there are no plans to draw down roughly 3,000 National Guard troops still stationed in prisons around the state. Lawmakers said during the hearing that they’re wary of the extra costs associated with the ongoing shortage, which have already topped $1 billion.

“The executive budget allocates $535 million for the National Guard. That represents over 4,000 COs, if you converted that to CO salary and fringe,” said state Sen. Dan Stec, a North Country Republican whose district includes seven prisons.

He said Guard personnel are “untrained and unqualified” to do the work of corrections officers.

State Sen. Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the chamber’s corrections committee, agreed.

“I’ve repeatedly heard from [corrections department] staff and incarcerated individuals that the National Guard generally are not playing a helpful role in prison operations,” she said. “There must be a better solution to staffing levels.”

Martuscello rejected Salazar’s assertion. He said having Guard personnel available to assist in some prison functions allowed various programs — including academic and rehabilitation activities — to take place.

“They are certainly allowing us to provide a better work-life balance,” he said.

All sides agreed that the solution is to recruit more officers. Martuscello insisted the department is making progress, but acknowledged that there are still 4,600 open guard positions across the state’s 42 prisons.

The Corrections Department had 13,497 officers and sergeants working on the eve of the February 2025 strike. The department reported that as of this month, there are 10,956.

Martuscello said there are now 20,000 people on a list eligible for a slot at the department’s eight-week training academy. Attrition rates have fallen by more than 75% from their peak last year, he said, and things are now “moving in the right direction to get off of relying on the National Guard, but I couldn’t speak more highly of them today.”

Hochul proposed the $535 million for the Guard in her executive budget, but complained about having to do so.

“It’s a major drain on us to have to be paying for all these National Guard members to do the job that I need people who work for me directly to do,” she said last month.

Republican lawmakers said the state needs to change prison discipline policies to help recruit more corrections officers. Last year, striking officers blamed the 2021 Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement law, which limited the use of solitary confinement, for contributing to an increase in prison violence. They demanded the law’s repeal.

“Albany Democrats are burning through over a billion dollars while refusing to address the policy failures that caused this crisis,” said Assemblymember Chris Friend, a Republican from the Oneonta area. “There’s no plan to end the Guard deployment, no accountability for the spending and no willingness to admit the HALT Act has made our prisons more dangerous.”

Advocates of the measure, like Salazar, said HALT has never been fully implemented. A working group including Martuscello and major labor unions last year recommended changes to the law that could result in more frequent use of solitary confinement.

Stec and other Republicans pushed Hochul to include those changes in her $262.7 billion budget plan. Inserting unrelated issues into budget bills gives the governor leverage to advance policies that might not otherwise pass the Legislature.

Hochul didn’t include any prison policy in budget amendments released last week. In a statement, spokesperson Jess D’Amelia was noncommittal.

“Governor Hochul is laser-focused on implementing fundamental, systemwide changes to the state’s correction system to ensure our facilities are run in a safe and efficient manner for all,” D’Amelia said. “Our administration will continue to partner with our partners in the Legislature to explore all options to improve the state’s corrections system.”

Image: Correctional officers and their supporters demonstrate in sight of Coxsackie Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley., Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, in Coxsackie, N.Y. (AP Photo/Michael Hill)