On the New York State prison uprisings and strikes

Right after midnight on February 20, people incarcerated at Riverview Correctional Facility in New York staged an uprising, pushing correctional officers out of their dormitories and keeping them out until early morning. Over 500 people live in the dormitories where the uprising took place.

This action came just a week after people incarcerated in Collins Correctional Facility rioted and in the midst of an ongoing wildcat strike of New York corrections officers (COs). A skeleton crew of COs remain at most facilities. The strike has been framed in mainstream media as a response to the compromised safety of officers dealing with rising prison populations and few resources. COs claim that overcrowding in prisons is made worse by HALT, recent legislation that outlawed solitary confinement exceeding 14 days. But incarcerated people, their loved ones, abolitionist activists, and sympathetic workers inside the prison have been fighting to show that this strike is not a worker action — it is an attack on prison reforms and accountability for COs.

A social worker who works inside prisons — and who asked to not be identified due to the “vindictive nature” of prison officials — told Lux that the strike timing, which coincided with the indictment of COs who murdered Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility in December 2024, was merely a “pathetic attempt to direct attention away from their crimes.” She is dismayed by the potential of the strike to roll back HALT. 

“I have several clients who were held in solitary confinement for upwards of 15 years prior to HALT, and if HALT went down I assure you those lengthy sentences would start up again immediately.” 

New York State’s prison administrations have enforced draconian rules in response to the strike. Visitation to all 36 New York state prisons has been suspended. Some facilities have limited what people can purchase through the commissary. In Attica, all legal calls have been suspended. Access to hot meals is uneven. At Mid-State, a person inside reported “we are stuck in our housing units with National Guard on every floor.” 

A person inside Bare Hill Correctional Facility recently wrote to the social worker about the total abandonment they’re facing: “The COs locked the doors and left the prisons. Only incarcerated individuals are in here and there is no one to bring us our meds. Everyone is scared.”

At Riverview, prisoners are being subjected to extreme violence. The wife of a person in prison there described the violence he experienced at the hands of the Correctional Emergency Response Teams (CERT) sent in after the uprising. She says it was “just like they did to Robert Brooks! He was spitting up blood and has knots, bruises and pains from being punched, kicked, kneed, and slammed around. The inmates are not safe and are afraid for their lives.”

Reformist and abolitionist groups alike have condemned the illegal CO strike, with calls for action growing louder in the wake of reports of two people dying at Sing Sing. The uprisings at Riverview and Collins are clear expressions of rage from people who have few options and refuse to rely on the mercy of the state. Is a statewide prison rebellion in the offing? —Cheryl Rivera