Nearly 1,000 jobs vanished when two NY prisons closed Nov. 6. What became of the workers?

Posted by Admin January 9, 2025 Jobs

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The announcement last year that New York would close another two prisons set off tremors in two upstate communities that stood to lose hundreds of well-paying jobs.

That’s what happened four months later when Great Meadow and Sullivan correctional facilities shut for good on Nov. 6. But state figures show a potential silver lining for the 966 correction officers and other permanent employees whose lives were upended: nearly 93% of them had found positions at other New York prisons or other state agencies by the time of the closures.

How many NY prison workers found other jobs?

Some 895 workers took other state jobs, while another 71 retired or quit after the July 18 closure announcement, according to a three-page report from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The department was required to account for those former employees as part of the same section of last year’s budget that authorized the state to close as many as five prisons.

State officials opted to close two, while saying in July that others may follow if staff shortages persisted. No other closures have been announced.

According the report, workers at the two prisons accepted transfers to other facilities for two months after the closure announcement, before the state began “reduction-in-force” steps on Sept. 9 to try to place the remaining employees. Ultimately, each was offered another state job, though some declined, state officials say in the report.

The bulk of the resignations were at Great Meadow, which had 507 security and 105 civilian employees when the closures were announced. Though most of them took jobs at other prisons and state agencies, 48 security workers resigned.

Some appear to have found other corrections jobs nearby. In an interview with the USA Today Network, Fort Ann Supervisor Samuel Hall said about 10 Great Meadows workers were hired by sheriff’s departments in Washington and three neighboring counties to work in their jails.

How often does NY close its prisons?

The state has closed 26 prisons over the last few decades as inmate numbers plunged, following the repeal of harsh drug sentencing laws from the 1970s. As of this month, New York’s 42 remaining correctional facilities housed 33,654 inmates, less than half the peak prison population of 72,649 in 1999.

The last two to close were both valued employers in rural areas that coveted those jobs and the foot traffic for local businesses. Great Meadow, the larger of the two, was in the Adirondacks, located in the town of Fort Ann in Washington County. Sullivan Correctional was in the Catskills, in the Sullivan County town of Fallsburg.

Both were maximum-security prisons, and each was paired with a nearby medium-security facility that could absorb some of the workers who lost their jobs in the closures.

Closures could have ripple effects for years

Fallsburg Supervisor Michael Bensimon, in a phone interview this week, said the closure of Sullivan Correctional was a blow to the area and to the prison’s former employees, even if most have secured other state jobs. Some may now be making onerous commutes to distant prisons or have been forced to uproot their families and move across the state, he pointed out.

“Whatever the numbers are, we lost 300 working, productive employees in this town, along with their families,” he said.

Bensimon also argued the initial outcomes shown in the state report may worsen over time if workers quit the less desirable state jobs that they accepted.

“Let’s look at those numbers in a year and see what the real impact is,” Bensimon said.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.