Understaffed or Overpopulated?: Looking Inside New York’s Prisons Post-Strike

Since the correctional officers strike ended in late February, NYS prisons have yet to fully recover. During the three weeks of the unsanctioned strike, inmates found themselves confined to their cells for almost the entire day, and virtually all programs — from visitation and recreation to religious services and educational classes — were canceled. And now six months post-strike, prisons remain severely unsteady, with many of these programs still canceled or only just beginning to restart amid staffing shortages. Radio Catskill’s Julia Kim had the chance to speak with Thomas Gant of the decarceration nonprofit Center for Community Alternatives; Melanie Bishop, a public school teacher and the mother of an incarcerated son in New York; and Max Kenner, Executive Director for the in-prison college program Bard Prison Initiative on what new challenges incarcerated individuals and their loved ones are facing on-the-ground and how post-strike conditions have come to expose preexisting issues inside NYS prisons.