Justice or Not: My experience as a State Correction Officer inside New York's Prisons

By Paul Harrington Sr

As you read Paul Harrington’s day-to-day and month-to-month experiences within the state's prison system, you will see a broken system – one that is full of loopholes, lies, cover-ups and corruption. This system is full of daily violence and numerous officers are injured by violent inmates.

Each officer has their unique view of the prison system. Here, Harrington wishes to share his perspective of how different administrations created changes in the daily operations at Fishkill Correctional Facility, where he was stationed after a 15-month stint at Sing Sing.

Not every day was routine, albeit that is how most officers wanted it, including the author. Even the inmates wanted to know what to expect on their assigned units each day they woke up. This book will take you down the hallways and up the stairs of Fishkill's various buildings in its vast complex. It will show you everything from contraband weapons to a takeover note written by inmates 20 years ago following a homicide of a prisoner that led to 40 inmates being shipped out just hours later.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781649797025

Paul Harrington Sr

Thank you Robyn Velik Klein for giving me your loving support in my life and my work. I want to express my deep gratitude to my family, Heather, Sonya, Hannah, Amit, James, and Toby, for their love and support as well. Over decades I have been inspired and enlightened by many people that I have been privileged to know and work with. These include Maurice Strong who demonstrated to me by his own deeds, and through our conversations, that one could aspire to imagine and seek to shape a future for our planet and for humanity that is worthy of humanity’s best self.

Book preview

About the Author

Paul Harrington is a retired New York State corrections officer and a Desert Storm and Operation Restore Hope veteran, having served in the U.S. Air Force from 1989–1993. He has received multiple commendations for his service and is currently active in several law enforcement and fire organizations throughout the Hudson Valley region of New York. Recently, he has been advocating on behalf of multiple law enforcement officers, during their time of need. Paul is working on developing a not-for-profit to assist all lines of law enforcement within New York. It took Paul almost four years to write this memoir; working from several saved documents as well as current administrative law cases to gather all the facts needed to complete this timeline of events. He is originally from upstate New York, growing up in Malone, and now resides in the Hudson Valley with his family and two children.

Dedication

To all the men and women who work inside the prisons within New York State and beyond; to those that sacrifice their safety on a daily basis so that our communities can feel secure knowing that you are walking some of those toughest beats in America. We salute them all for their service and their unrelenting determination to protect us all. Stay safe in there, watch each other’s backs, and stand up for what’s right when all else falls against you. Thank you, brothers and sisters.

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Copyright Information ©

Paul Harrington Sr 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Sr, Paul Harrington

Justice or Not

ISBN 9781649796400 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781649797018 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781649797025 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022904579

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank many of my friends and colleagues who have supported me during this long road to retirement, especially those who were there for me when my well-being was in turmoil. A special expression of gratitude to Dr. Marc Habif, Dr. Virginia Feldman, Dr. Martin Ogulnick, Dr. Jeff Newton, Dr. Robert Lustbader, Dr. Kenny and the many other specialists who treated my injuries. I am truly in debt to the Roth Law Group in White Plains, New York, for winning all of my cases when I thought all else would fail. A special shout out to Dave G, Mike P, Wally P, JR, Al, Dean D, Joey G, and Ed V and his family for truly caring and being there in any way possible to support my endeavors. Lastly, to my family from all around who were there every step of the way, either physically, emotionally, or in prayer. Thank you for getting me to where I am today.

Cover Photo Credit: J.M. DeSousa

Chapter One

The Beginning

Not too many people grow up in their lives saying they want to go work in a prison. It just kind of happens. Either you already have family who works in corrections, or like me, you hear of the upcoming civil service exams. What seems to be an exciting new job on the horizon blinds one looking into the distance seeing where it will take them into their future. You will never know until you try. I started at Sing Sing Prison and then spent most of my corrections career, ending it at Fishkill Correctional Facility. Fishkill’s prison sits not too far from the banks of the Hudson River in Beacon, New York, in Duchess County. Built and opened in 1892, as the Matteawan State Hospital for the criminally insane, it housed some of the most violent felons that New York could get their hands on. While the history of that era could go on and on, I wanted to introduce the beginning of what soon became known as Fishkill Correctional Facility. The Matteawan colony farm was closed in the mid-1960s, when the director decided that farming was not relevant training for a patient population, drawn principally from New York City. Relevance was a consideration that arose during the 1960s for many institutions. In this case, the prison system de-emphasized farming. Since then, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) has reduced its agribusiness program. On January 1, 1977, Mental Hygiene opened the Central New York Psychiatric Center (CNYPC), a special forensic mental health facility on the grounds of the Beacon complex (CNYPC was relocated to a portion of Marcy State Hospital in September of that year). With the creation of CNYPC, Matteawan closed forever. Fishkill housed approximately 1,700 inmates, currently operates as the regional medical unit for southern New York’s prisons and offers a wide range of educational programs including Pre-General Second Language (ESL), bachelor of arts through the Bard Prison Initiative, bachelor of science degree in Organizational Management through a partnership between Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison and Nyack College, and various vocational classes with hands-on experience for the inmates. Of the 1,700 inmates at Fishkill, close to 45% of them are under care of the Office of Mental Health (OMH). With the closing of many psych centers around New York by Governor Andrew Cuomo, this pushed mental health inmates into the prison systems that were not designed to handle them. This created a systematic state-wide issue with how staffers now had to handle these mental health violent offenders. These inmates often would not go along with the program and things turned violent. It’s a huge problem when administration does not have the officer’s back. That is, in most cases, beyond things such as in-house disciplinary sanctions and outside charges and putting pressure on Duchess County’s District Attorney to prosecute. The problem was that our hands were tied behind our back. It was like them being allowed to physically assault us, knowing that nothing would happen to them in return due to their mental health status. Imagine this happening to cops out on the street? Myself, and thousands of other officers in New York’s prison system can and should hold Governor Cuomo ultimately responsible to the working officers whose family lives are disintegrated due to the varying consequences of these mental health patients. There are varying levels of each inmate’s mental health status and most of them are on medication and walk freely throughout general population in the medium-security portion of Fishkill, which also has a maximum security unit called S-Block, where up to 200 inmates can be held in solitary confinement.

The State of New York owned a large parcel of what had been used for farmland which adjoined the former Beacon Correctional Facility for convicted females. It remained unused except for occasional farmers haying the fields until around 2000 when it had been sold to the City of Beacon. In 2001, construction began on what would soon become the new City of Beacon High School, hosting a large complex of buildings and sporting fields with a large parking area running along the eastern side of the school. In 2002, the school had officially opened, moving all students from the older school several blocks away into the new state-of-the-art modernized facility. What many do not know, especially most students attending there, is that just a couple hundred feet west of the high school and of the tennis courts, is an unmarked graveyard in which multiple former incarcerated mental patients and inmates are buried there. This area is hidden by trees and bushes. Back then and still today, when families do not claim the body, the state would have the remains placed in a pine wood box and buried side by side as close as can be to preserve space for future prisoners who were laid to rest there. Outside, work crew inmates would be used to dig the graves, marking it with a small block embedded into the grass that indicated the dates and their department identification number (For example 77A1234). The first 2 numbers were the year they were entered into the system, then the letter would indicate where he/she had been classified, and the last 4 numbers would be the order in which they were processed that year. This is still an active cemetery being used for dead inmates who are not claimed from their families for private burial. So next time you are at a tennis match at the school, keep that in mind. One could simply walk over and see for themselves. The markers are just above ground level unlike the headstones you would see in a normal cemetery.

I became a corrections officer trainee on December 27, 1994, and started my recruit training at the department’s training academy in Albany, New York. The Academy was a watered-down version of the basic training I went through when I previously enlisted in the military right out of high school. I served 1989-1993 in the US Air Force during Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Operation Restore Hope in Africa. While in the Corrections Academy, there were quite a few officer trainees that quit during the numerous weeks of training, not being able to handle being away from home, various hardships, and the most evident one being the day of taking a tour inside one of the nearby state prisons to see the environment we would soon be working in. To me, the academy was already easy having that prior military experience. Most of our days were either in the classroom, doing physical fitness at the gymnasium, or out at the firing range for weapons and chemical agents training.

I recall when I was going through my entry processing in Albany, the psychologist doing my interview asked, Why do you want to become a Corrections Officer? My reply to the doctor was, I feel as if I could assist in helping with the rehabilitative process for the inmates who were serving time for their crimes. Looking back on this over two decades later, boy was I ever wrong. There is some attempt to rehabilitate, but the recidivism rate is nearly 2/3 on average. The system just does not work. On the flip side of that coin, under 80% of the officer trainees that graduate from the Corrections Academy actually work and have a full and legitimate career. Most correction officers are good and honest public servants doing an enormously challenging and important job. But then there are those officers that become a part of the system themselves by becoming a criminal. Sometimes the academy was able to weed those out during training, but it would not be until they actually got into the system and they became comfortable and adapted to the new environment.

Soon after my graduation from the Corrections Academy, I was assigned to Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York. Being a maximum-security facility, and amongst the oldest and most historical in the State, Sing Sing had its fair share of incidents – go figure – since most of the officers coming in to work there were transients, newly brought onto the job, and the prisoners knew this, using it to their advantage. You would see staff come and go there almost as fast as a few months, but my class was the last hired before the end of the year in 1994 when newly-elected Governor George Pataki took office and did a hiring freeze in NY state. They kept warning us of layoffs or pink slips, but it never happened. This kept a lot of us there for quite some time, making for an extended stay, longer than expected commutes, you name it. In order to get moved, we would have to have a new class come in behind us to push us out onto our transfer list requested assignments. Prior to my transfer earlier that summer, there had been a major uprising in B Block on the top 2 tier galleries, once they opened up the cells for the evening chow meal. This gallery is like the size of a football field and about five stories high. It’s enormous, and especially on your first visit there, it can be somewhat intimidating. One of my old roommates at the time was working up there. He soon became a State Trooper. I can recall him saying he put his back to the wall, unable to do anything as several inmates ran up and down the galleries with shanks and homemade weapons, cutting and stabbing each other. They shut the jail down and called for all available officers. I recall running up from the lower part of the prison in the Tappan area of Sing Sing with my baton in hand, sprinting with a group of officers all the way up the yard corridor stairs. Upon arrival, it was pure bloodshed. I first saw one of our sergeants on the ground, leaning against the wall, his white uniform shirt covered in blood. Complete chaos, with the incident still out of control. When we got there, we spread out trying to take control, not even knowing what we were dealing with at the time and where it had all started. Several injuries were sustained, mostly to the inmate gang retaliation where more than a dozen inmates had been cut, slashed, or stabbed. Many officers had been injured as well, it took a couple hours to get everything under control and the injured seen by medical and/or transported out to the hospital during that incident. That was a wakeup call for anyone who was new on the job, which at the time, many of us still were there with under a year on the job.

I also recall another incident that spring, when I was assigned on one of the posts that involved a fence patrol to an area that was newly constructed. It had rained a lot that spring, and it was already dark outside, with the ground being wet, but the rain had stopped. This fence ran within the walls of the prison which separated the inside buildings of this vast facility. In fact, many outsiders of the public do not know this, but Metro North Railroad has trains that run straight through the prison facility, with the high walls and fencing around it, the track areas were far below. I believe it is the only one like it from all around. There is a road and bridge that crosses over it, connecting the upper part to the lower part of Sing Sing’s facility. On top of that bridge is a wall post called Tower 4. It was staffed back then by two officers on my shift. One was always patrolling the walk plank, watching down as the trains passed through to their next stop at the Ossining Train Station. I had some safety issues that evening, as I was walking along the interior fence post on an assignment, pulling on the fence checking to see it was secured and not previously tampered with. The newly constructed area, to include the ground soil, had become like quicksand, all due to the rain and thawing. Before I knew it, I was up to my crotch in the ground. Anyone shorter than me would have been up to their neck. One of the patrol units was called over the radio to assist. Upon their arrival, they could not get me out as they were starting to fall in as well. One of the officers from Tower 4 yelled over and said they could use the 20-foot rope they had. This had a large metal loop on it which they used to attach keys to and lower to the incoming relief officers so they could enter the tower door below. They grabbed that rope and threw it to down to the officer, then brought it to me and tried pulling but to no avail; it was not enough energy in the direction they were going. Now more staff had arrived and they were deciding on what to do at that point. The last thing they wanted to do was have the fire department come in there. One of the officers had a brilliant idea of wrapping me with the rope and pulling me out with the state van. But instead, a human chain was formed and within minutes I was pulled out of the pit. The watch commander’s office was briefed about this as it was happening. Luckily, I was able to get out of the sink hole in one piece, surprisingly enough, without injury, but covered in mud. As I was on my way up to the medical unit to get checked out, one of the officers had overthrown the rope back up to the officer in the tower post but missed the top of the tower officer’s grip by far and it landed on the train tracks below. I am told one of the rail maintenance men were able to get it removed sometime shortly afterward. Later on, as the news spread, quite a few of the senior officers told me that they saw that incident as a great opportunity to take some time off from work, but being new as I was and absent any injury, I stayed the course.

Then it was Christmas Eve, December 24, 1995, when an inmate had been murdered in A block on the bottom gallery, just adjacent the recreational area. He had been stabbed to death. It was late in the shift, after dinner time. There were a lot of rumors about the actual details of how this happened, but facts showed ultimately it had been a hit from a gang-related drug deal. The prison was on lockdown for a couple of days, holding all inmates in their cells. Meals were delivered in white foam trays to each cell. This is when even the civilian staff were put to work assisting in kitchen duties and whatever essentials had to be completed inside the prison. It had happened in his cell which the gate of it had been open at the time for that evening’s activities. I remember working the corridor gates in that evening as several suits showed up, along with state police and other investigators. From the way things were going, I thought I was never going to get home that night. It was my first awakening to the worst type of violence that surrounded the officers who worked inside those galleries, locked inside with the inmates that often outnumbered staff approximately 110 to 2. I remained there for approximately 14 months before finally getting my transfer to Fishkill early in spring of 1996.

Since day one at both prisons, I had always been assigned to the afternoon shift, a very popular shift for single officers who liked to go out on the town after work and get to sleep in before going back into work. I am originally from the North Country Region of New York, not too far off the Canadian border. I had the chance to eventually make it back up north closer to home, being on the transfer list. I remained on the list but then thought about the area of where I was now living, how much I liked it, and having met many new friends, I decided to take myself off the list and make Fishkill Correctional Facility my permanent assignment. I settled in until this day where I have established a beautiful family, a new home, a thriving business, and a busy schedule of community service throughout the town I live in. In the early part of my career, many officers had been treated respectfully and were looked at individually for our skill sets which each of us had to offer. With other jobs besides your regular post that required additional training for officers to sign up for these duties, it was per the directives that we were paid no extra salary for the performance of these duties. It was strictly for those who cared about their job, wanted to help create a safer environment and working conditions for all. When the older administrations had moved on to retirement, transfers, etc., things would change. It got to the point where the politics of the administration would affect the morale of the entire staff at the facility, including that of our union, who could not for the life of them, get us to all become united as one. Back then with such a higher sense of an easier working environment, officers worked as a team and often continued working with injuries sustained while on duty from inmate related incidents. Much of the reason for doing such was their responsibility of working their swapped shift for other officers who traded shifts to get extra time off. Even if the officers had each other’s backs, it was not uncommon to see that the newer administrations did not. Most of the time we worked injured while being treated in fear of losing our careers and way of life, and for the need to support our families. I can’t tell you how many people walk into Fishkill’s Prison, especially on the night shift, with limps, bum knees, bad backs, and being messed up by numerous orthopedic injuries. The employers of the department were always quick to get you back to work even against the advice of your doctors, surgeons, and lawyers, all in an effort for the prison to be able to avoid overtime. The more overtime there was, the worse it looked for the top brass. Albany’s eyes would see it as mismanagement and frowned upon of those administrators. These administration officials wanted to keep their jobs and chances for promotions, but if they did not make the numbers appear in an acceptable form, then it was down the drain for them. We were just numbers to them, and still are today. Albany has given more rights to inmates such as parolee’s right to vote, inmates getting free computer tablets to email home, and don’t even get me started about the free college degrees from 3-4 recognized universities that came in weekly for those inmates that enrolled to get further education. In the state’s eye, this looked to be a part of their rehabilitation, but in the eyes of the public, it became infuriating since they worked and created savings, took on college loans, all in an effort to get his or her kid through college. The inmates finish their sentence and on release, they have ZERO college loans. Do your law-abiding family members have college loans? I’ll bet the farm on it.

As an officer, you are placed in a dangerous environment, and at times, a violent world of pain and despair. Shrouded from the good and innocent, love and happiness, calm and quiet. You are often secluded with society’s worst. attempting to correct behavior of those that in most cases do not want to be corrected.

At that time period, the outside world did not care about the unseen prisoners. They pretended the brutal world of corrections did not exist. The politicians in charge turn their backs until something bad happens. At this point, questions are being asked and fingers are being pointed often at the officers and saying they are at fault. After all, they say shit rolls downhill, and when it’s an incident that turns bad, normally the most senior officer is held responsible, depending on the situation. It certainly could mean the worst scenario for anyone working in the area of the incident. Officers would get injured there quite often. Many of those times, if the situation was unfounded, it was simply taken as if the incident had occurred, even with no witness accounts. But being a witness to incidents inside there could be an easy set-up if you did not go along with the program. If there was not much for injury, the other person involved had his time coming, not knowing if someone or something would be waiting in the least expected place. If the situation was that bad and it warranted immediate action, out to the parking lot it would go, many times occurring between shifts. And we are talking about officer-on-officer incidents of workplace violence. If either of those parties involved only had minor injuries, perhaps worse, they would take some time off using their sick leave credits. Those were the old days; it is now rare to see this occur right in the vicinity of the facility. But one thing was for sure, it would be of no secret and that individual officer would become isolated by their co-workers.

Slowly the officer who was victimized becomes desensitized and withdrawn to family and friends. On the outside of the walls, there is nobody to talk to. They don’t understand because his/her life is shrouded and hidden from the public. You often find yourself sitting in the back of the room with your back to the wall. A loud bang and you jump fearing the worst.

Corrections takes its toll on your health and mind. Eating away at you from the inside out. The public should think about the correction officers and the job they do to protect you and your family from the unseen. Pray that they stay safe to return home to loved ones. Think about correction officers and how their lives are affected by this hidden world. Most of us hide the fact of what they had experienced and don’t talk about it much so it does not appear to be an issue upon one’s observation, but when you look deep inside of them, you will see a whole new dark side. Thank them for all that they give up for you and your family. Because they do it for their own.

In the early days of my new assignment at Fishkill, I had the opportunity to work many areas of the prison to gain more knowledge and experience so that I could better myself and my expectations within the facility. Many officers working in this prison had several family members also working there in some capacity. Whether it was a civilian truck driver, maintenance, nursing staff, or even a secretary, there had been plenty of those jobs to go around. It leads one to wonder, how so? Soon enough one would find out that after a job was posted, many applicants were brought into the administration building for job interviews, only to have the position filled that had been saved by a current employee who was already working there and had gotten first pick for their job-seeking family member. This is a large facility with several buildings that are connected by an underground tunnel that has not been in used for decades, as well as a paved road called the Walkway that has numerous security posts along it where inmates and staff alike traverse this area to get around the facility. There are many buildings divided amongst the compound of this vast facility within the perimeter fencing. You have Buildings 21, 21A, S-Block, the RMU (Regional Medical Unit), administration building, Buildings 12 and 13, gymnasium, industry work areas, And the largest of all, the main building. The main building in the lower section of the facility is divided into a north and south side, comprised of mainly housing units, recreation yards, a mess hall, and some industry areas that inmates work at making certain products for Corcraft, a division of Corrections Industry. You can actually Google it and see it clearly on maps now, whereas back in the day, for security reasons, it would have been blurred out. If you zoom in closely, you can see the open yard areas, the baseball fields, and the layout of the entire facility. The industry area primarily produced office furniture as well as heavy-duty items such as metal doors, gates, bed frames, basically anything for the prisons and other state agencies.

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Photo Credit: Robert Welsted

This main building also has a secured access entrance to the basement that is closed to everyday traffic nowadays. From time to time, staff can gain access to get in there for maintenance issues, and I had an opportunity to take a tour through there with the fire/safety team. There are basement areas facing the south side of the building that were used many years ago, when it was ran as the Matteawan State Hospital for the insane. There were a number of rooms side by side up a gallery hall with solid brick walls. These were very small rooms, maybe about 5 feet wide by about 7 feet long. There are no doors on them now, however there could have been back then. They are covered in cobwebs and very dirty from being deserted and not maintained. On those walls that very day I was down there, I observed rusty old chains still attached to the brick walls in those rooms. They were used to restrain and control the mental health prisoners. They called them the scream rooms. You can just about imagine what occurred in those areas back in the day. The history in that place goes back well over a century and if those walls could speak, there would be some sad, sad stories told. So much has happened that the outside world would not know and did not want to know. Today, a paved road leading to other areas of the prison is called the walkway that connects most of all the buildings in the complex. This is also used for vehicular traffic within the facility. This is a common practice in prison facilities across New York. Vehicles pass slowly right in the vicinity of the inmates on this same walkway. Believe it or not, there are signs that say keep off sidewalk so that they walk on the pavement. I am surprised no inmates have yet commandeered a vehicle and take it straight out through the gate with force. Perhaps it is the highly mounted wall post tower at that gate that deters this effort on the south side of the facility above this walkway, where an officer is stationed around the clock with multiple weapons, chemical agents, among other things. Buildings 12 and 13 primarily house the work release program, inmates who come and go on schedules to their outside jobs in order to prepare themselves for their release back into society. This area also has the large visiting rooms, the school areas, the chapel, and the facility barber shop, as well as several offices and the libraries. Across from this is the gymnasium, and much money was spent to refurbish the roofs and windows, as well as the electrical and mechanical aspects of these buildings inside the facility over the last several years in that amounted to millions of dollars. Literally well over 23 million dollars. Just up from the gym is the newest part of the facility, the RMU, also known as the Regional Medical Unit. Another multimillion-dollar three-story facility that houses an infirmary, a unit for the cognitively impaired, as well as dental offices, physical therapy, various medical areas, specialty clinics, a temporary morgue, in addition to a trauma area staffed by nurses and some doctors. Most of the time prisoners have to be sent out to the hospitals just for x-rays and whatever because of their inability to do these medical procedures in this medical unit. There are occasions that a large mobile MRI unit on a tractor trailer is brought in and set up behind the medical unit for inmates who are in need of the MRI tests.

Down the hill from the RMU is the S-Block, a special housing unit that is maximum security. It can hold up to 200 inmates. They are housed up to 2 inmates per cell, for up to 23 hours per day, and they are let out into a small caged area that is sort of like the size a small deck in your room off a cruise ship, minus the view and smell of course. They have changed policies in which inmates who have committed infractions of regulations or rules, are often sent for keep lock status pending their hearing based on those charges. Then you have what they call up the hill Buildings 21 and 21A. Probably one of the most troublesome areas of this prison. Another housing area with recreation yards, mess hall, a mental health unit, various inmate organizations, maintenance shops, and what we refer to as the box, where inmates are segregated and put into solitary confinement. This is also the location of numerous vocational shops, but these days, those programs are starting to close up one by one and have not reopened. Building 21 is the most active. Between the age of the inmates, the gang activities, drug trades, and the various mental health inmates walking around in population to boot, it’s all a ticking time bomb. It’s not a question of if, but when. It is a prison. Fishkill is set up like dormitories for the most part. There are not enough eyes to watch every nook and cranny, every corner and blind spot in those units or the entire building that inmates have access to it. At that time, with the absence of security video cameras in 80% of the facility, the inmates start to learn the routines of the regular officers, so it is always a possibility for just about anything to occur.

The sex trade is another issue. Inmates in the past have reported to me that they had been pushed up on and pressured to have sex with other inmates. While it would virtually create a bad situation for them to officially report it, most of them just wanted to be transferred to another unit to get away from the individuals threatening them for sex. Like I said before, there are lots of areas in this giant facility which is way understaffed to have eyes watching over every spot an inmate knows he could go and do something without getting caught. It still dismays me that there have been no proactive efforts in installing a large network of mounted security cameras throughout the facility. The department has just recently come out with a program to address this issue called PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act). While it does develop certain powers to control and determine the outcome of situations with investigation and enforcement, it is with certainty that this problem will surely not go away.

With such great morale and staff working at Fishkill when I first arrived in 1996, I had started to really jump into my job there by working many different posts as a resource officer. As much energy as I had, it was good to be able to have an unusual routine. The inmates would not know what to expect of me as I would be assigned in various areas. I was not afraid of getting dirty back then either. I would climb the tops of toilets onto the bathroom stalls to balance myself on the thin divider panels so I could reach up to the air ducts or fiberglass wrapped pipes. These were popular areas for shanks (sharpened metal rods), often made really well with taped-up handles and sometimes even a shoestring as a thong to wrap your hand around. They were sometimes as small as 4 inches and other times as long as 14 inches. I have found weapons and drugs on inmates’ possession as well, which was considered to be an unusual incident. There would be outside charges filed, but only on a rare occasion. Things were handled within the prison most of the time. There were several times I was assigned to the Industry 3 and 4 areas where these prime spots for weapons and tattoo machines were being made. They would be stuffed into the wall inside fiberglass insulation. I found so much of that stuff at one point that other officers would joke that I was making that contraband up at home and bringing them in. Even I had to laugh at that.

Then there was this one officer, his nickname was Blue. He was an old timer, a senior man, who pushed a cart around from time to time among various other duties with inmates’ bagged property to sort through before the inmates were transferred out to another prison. He was a funny guy with a good sense of humor. After work, he would head out to the car at 10:30 p.m., pop the trunk, open the cooler, and have a nice cold drink. One day he told me that I was finding way too much contraband. You know, they could send five officers into an empty cell to frisk it and then they all come out empty-handed saying nothing found in there, Sarge, but right away they send you in and you could come out with a sword. Blue meant for that to be a ball-buster, but everyone knew that each time we found this contraband, it was less of a danger to any of us working there.

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area of inmate’s housing unit showers. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area of inmate’s housing unit radiator. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area of inmate’s housing unit fire extinguisher hung on wall. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area of inmate’s housing unit. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area of inmate’s housing unit. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area of inmate’s housing unit showers. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon and tattoo machine found in common area of inmate’s housing unit. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade tattoo machine found in common area of inmate’s housing unit showers. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapons found in common area of inmate industry work areas. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapons found in common area of inmate’s housing unit. Photo by P. Harrington

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Example of homemade weapon found in common area inside cushioned seat of inmate’s housing unit TV room. Photo by P. Harrington

Then in the late ’90s, I can recall another officer who was very well known on the afternoon shift. His name was Teddy; he was very confident and macho, and back then things were quieter and easier to get away with. He too was a resource officer and lived on state grounds. He had a room on the 2nd floor of a three-story dormitory referred to as Home B which was located within a two-minute walk from the front gate of the prison. He had a special room, one that was like a small studio, complete with a living room, bedroom, and his own bathroom. There were a few studio style rooms like this in the dorm. Other single rooms in that dorm had to use public restrooms and showers. It was meant for Fishkill staff that might be staying there while temporarily assigned to the prison, and then for others who were permanent but chose to live in state housing nonetheless. There were always some sort of incidents going on, and often he was the go-to guy for transporting inmates, or doing escorts, covering posts short term, or would be just an extra officer who could roam an area until called upon when needed. There were ways to get out of the jail without having to go through the administration gate up front where he would be seen coming and going. Between the walkway area that is used for foot traffic by both inmates and staff, is a fenced-in trap area with a small booth but enough for one or two officers to stand in. Back then, and often times, the administration tower officer would see either a uniform at the gate or someone in civilian clothes. When the booth was not manned, the tower officer would rely on the inside admin gate officer to check the ID of the person coming through back then. Since then, there have been changes in procedures but at this time period, all one would have to do is walk through the trap after being buzzed through and walk downstairs unannounced to the empty lineup room where we had our pre-shift briefings. There was an emergency exit door in the northeast corner of the room that had an inoperable panic alarm bar on it, and the door was unable to be locked for quite some time. There had been work orders placed on it, but it had been a long time before it was repaired. You could easily walk out undetected into the parking lot. The administration lobby upstairs has a front gate manned 24 hours a day, but one could walk down the hallway after hours into an office on the first floor, or in this case, the copying machine room, and easily climb out the window and be gone. There were no bars on the windows of the administration building at all, even until this day. A lot of times anyone could go through the window or use the downstairs door and be undetected by front gate staff.

The administration building was a quiet place usually between 5:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. All the day shift civilian staffers had already left for the day. Very few staff remained, on average 3-4 in the watch commander’s office, another 2-3 in the arsenal and then the administration gate officer. One day I was assigned to one of the outside vehicle patrols. My unit that day was called Patrol 90. There were two units out there, the other one being Patrol 91. In the vehicles, we carried an arsenal of weapons, chemical agents, you name it. We drove around the vast facility, its complex of state housing, and many other areas, similar to a campus. There was also a public road that passed through the facility. Since we only had two towers overseeing the perimeter and gate areas, these patrols were necessary; as I mentioned before, it is a large complex. From time to time, road posts would be manned to block unauthorized traffic from entering facility grounds. This use to be a 24/7 around-the-clock post, but they closed those posts. That allowed anyone to pass through along the facility fence line perimeter and could quite easily make that drop of contraband to be picked up by the inmate crews that came outside for the daily work details. Getting back to the matter of Teddy, the well-known officer who had more fear from his co-workers than respect.