CANY Releases Reports from Monitoring at Four New York State Prisons: Great Meadow, Clinton, Downstate & Bedford Hills
CANY has released four reports summarizing observations, findings, and recommendations from CANY’s monitoring at Great Meadow, Clinton, Downstate, and Bedford Hills Correctional Facilities in 2021. These reports also include written responses from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Under its unique state mandate, CANY conducts multi-day monitoring visits to all 44 prisons in the state. Following these monitoring visits, the organization issues reports to inform stakeholders of key issues identified at each prison and makes recommendations to address the most salient concerns.
These four new reports outline deficiencies across four prisons, including inadequate medical, dental, and mental healthcare; deteriorating physical infrastructure; extensive staffing shortages; lack of access to communication through phones and tablets; and insufficient programming, among other concerning conditions. However, the monitoring also highlighted several successful endeavors and committed staff members seeking to provide services to their best ability, including effective efforts to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to incarcerated people.
Across the four prisons, CANY makes 30 recommendations that include improving the responsiveness to requests for healthcare and ensuring that an adequate level of care is provided; conducting a comprehensive review of staffing levels; providing improved communication by video and phone; and assessing the gaps in quality and availability of rehabilitative programming.
Post-Visit Briefing and Recommendations Reports
No.22-01: Monitoring Visit to Great Meadow Correctional Facility | June 28-29, 2021
No.22-02: Monitoring Visit to Clinton Correctional Facility | July 21-22, 2021
No.22-03: Monitoring Visit to Downstate Correctional Facility | October 22, 2021
No.22-04: Monitoring Visit to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility | November 22, 2021
