Correctional Association of New York

The Correctional Association of New York (CANY) maintains an extraordinarily deep and broad understanding of New York’s state correctional facilities. This understanding allows for nuanced assessment of the greatest challenges DOCCS faces in safely operating institutions that support rehabilitation, public safety, and human dignity. CANY’s vantage also affords the ability to identify examples of good policy and practice, of which there are many within DOCCS. The following recommendations, which take into consideration both persistent challenges and opportunities to scale up examples of excellence, were submitted to DOCCS for a statutory 60-day review period on October 9, 2024—two months to the day before Robert Brooks was fatally assaulted at Marcy Correctional Facility. These recommendations arise from CANY’s unique historical role as the independent oversight entity for state correctional facilities and activities authorized by Correction Law 146(3), which grants the organization authority “to access, visit, inspect, and examine all state correctional facilities with seventy-two hours advance notice to the department.” In FY24, CANY conducted 19 prison monitoring visits; interviewed more than 1,000 incarcerated individuals and more than one hundred state employees who work in these facilities; received hundreds of phone calls, letters, and website inquiries from or on behalf of incarcerated people seeking assistance; distributed thousands of surveys; and published 15 public-facing work products including reports on monitoring visits, dashboards of processed administrative data, data analysis, and legislative testimony. To inform the discussion about prison closures, CANY published a series of tools that allow stakeholders to view staffing levels by facility: Mapping Closures, Capacity, Staffing, and the

CANY, 2025. 7p.