Senator Gallivan Calls on Governor to Provide More Funding to Improve Safety Inside Prisons

Senator Patrick M. Gallivan (R-C-I, Elma) is urging Governor Cuomo to provide additional funding in the 2018-19 state budget to improve safety and security inside state operated correctional facilities.  Gallivan, Chair of the Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, shared his concern in a letter to the governor.

“While your administration has made several recommendations to ensure the safety and welfare of inmates, we must at a minimum, do more to provide resources and programs necessary to protect our employees who work under some of the most dangerous conditions possible,” Gallivan said.

According to DOCCS, inmate-on-staff assaults jumped nearly 24-percent from 2013 to 2017, while the number of inmate-on-inmate assaults has increased every year for the past five years.  Assaults resulted in 338 injuries to staff during the fourth quarter of 2017 alone.  The department also reports the number of incidents involving contraband increased from 2,712 incidents in 2013 to 4,131 incidents last year.

Gallivan says several pilot programs, such as the use of body cameras and pepper spray, have proven effective in reducing assaults and injuries.  He says funding is needed to expand those programs throughout the state.  Gallivan also supports efforts to curtail contraband inside state facilities by re-instating the secure vendor program to better control items entering the prisons and expand the use of K-9’s, metal detectors and body scanners

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