Examining both sides of closing Great Meadow Correction Facility

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Republicans have roasted Democrats like Gov. Kathy Hochul over the upcoming closure of Great Meadow Correction Facility ever since the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) announced it in July. And several elected officials backed a rally to keep the prison—a maximum security facility also known as Comstock, for the local municipality more than 200 miles north of New York City—open.

They argued that that local municipality’s people depend on the the prison to survive. Likely the highest-ranked Republican in New York, Congressmember Elise Stefanik attended the rally alongside Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner and State Sen. Dan Stec. She posted video of her speech at the rally that appears in the video at the bottom of this story.

“If the decision to close Great Meadows Correctional Facility is followed through, it will result in the single largest loss of jobs in the North Country in over 10 years, with over 800 jobs lost or relocated in addition to the hundreds of jobs that support the prison staff,” Stefanik said in a written statement. “Hochul’s forced closures will lead to dangerous overcrowding in our remaining prisons, all while ‘inmate on officers’ assaults are at record numbers.”

Those who want the prison to continue operating say that job offers at other facilities would require employees to relocate or face unfairly long commutes. GOP officials also characterize Democrats as weak on crime, blaming the declining prison population on policies that create fewer arrests and convictions.

But Alice Green, a prison reformer and previous Deputy Commissioner at the New York State Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives—the precursor to DOCCS—took issue with the message behind the rally. Today, she is the Executive Director of the Center for Law and Justice in Albany, which she founded after an officer-involved shooting in the 1980s.

Green pointed out that, historically, visitors to Comstock also faced unfairly long commutes. She said, “Families were not even welcomed as visitors to the area as they travel long painful trips to visit with their incarcerated loved ones.”

She joined other prison reformers in arguing that the Comstock demonstration valued profits over human rights. “Stefanik shouldn’t prioritize incarceration in an effort to keep state employees employed or to push her political agenda,” Green wrote after the rally.

Reform advocates encourage protesters to focus on getting New York and the federal governments to invest locally rather than relying on a correctional facility. After all, housing, jobs, and community activities thrive in many municipalities that lack such a prison, they argued.

“Your lawmakers are failing you if all they are doing is fecklessly complaining about prison closures,” said TeAna Taylor, Co-Director of Policy and Communications for the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign. “All New Yorkers should demand their elected representatives deliver good jobs, innovation, and economic opportunity that does not depend on continuing the legacy of slavery.”

Meanwhile, Stec has also launched a petition on his official Senate website to prevent closing Great Meadow in November. He said the petition will amplify the voice of the public.

“I’m proud to be a voice for our correction officers and civilian staff; now I’m asking the public to join me in that support,” he said. “With this petition, I’m hopeful our residents can help can send state leaders a strong message that Great Meadow should remain open.”

As reported by the New York Times in January, a lawsuit accuses guards at Great Meadow of waterboarding . And as reported by NYS Focus in 2021, Comstock boasted “the highest rate of suicides of any New York prison , the highest rate of suicide attempts, the highest rate of self-harm, and one of the highest rates of recorded staff violence.”

Sullivan Correctional Facility has been slated for closure alongside Great Meadow in November.

Take a look at Stefanik speaking before protestors at Great Meadow:

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