By Christine Graf
Local lawmakers and citizens are asking state officials to reconsider the decision to close Great Meadow Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Comstock. The prison is slated for closure as part of the state’s effort to adapt to a shrinking inmate population and a shortage of corrections officers.
According to New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), Great Meadow Correctional Facility and Sullivan Correctional Facility in Sullivan County will be closed by November 6. DOCCS has reported that employees at both prisons will be offered positions at other facilities within the state.
With approximately 650 employees, Great Meadow is the largest employer in Washington County. The prison’s closure is expected to have a significant economic impact on the county.
New York State Representative Carrie Woerner (AD-113) is part of a bi-partisan group of legislators calling upon Governor Kathy Hochul to reconsider the decision to close Great Meadow.
“The closure of that institution will have significant economic impact on the surrounding towns as well as the county as a whole. I think the decision to close Great Meadow was made without consideration of many factors that would have argued against closing Great Meadow,” said Woerner. “The goal that DOC has is to address the overall staffing shortages they have in the system, so they are trying to retain as close to 100 percent of the staff as they can by relocating them to other facilities. In Washington County and the surrounding region, there are only two facilities—Great Meadows and Washington Correctional.”
Although Washington Correctional, a medium-security prison located directly across the street from Great Meadow, is expected to absorb 60 to 70 Great Meadow employees, the majority will most likely be transferred to facilities in Coxsackie or Fulton County.
“If you live in Fort Ann, it would take you one hour and forty-seven minutes to get to Coxsackie. Fulton County is more two hours away,” said Woerner. “In other parts of the state, there are more facilities clustered together, so you can have a reasonable expectation that people would be able to transfer from one facility to another without having to disrupt their family life, without having to move—all of those things that will be necessary with the closing of Great Meadow.”
“If the overall goal is to improve security across the system, it seems to me that picking Great Meadow works against achieving that goal,” she added.
Woerner also mentioned that Washington Correctional relies on Great Meadow for power and water, something that should have been considered when making the decision.
“That linking between Great Meadow and Washington Correctional seems to have been ignored,” she said. “So, they will never be able to fully shut down Great Meadow unless they invest millions of dollars in building comparable water and heating infrastructure at Washington Correctional.”
Great Meadow also provides the medical facilities utilized by inmates at Washington Correctional. If Great Meadow is closed, Washington Correctional inmates with medical issues will be have to be taken by van or ambulance to Glens Falls Hospital.
“Now you’ve got added costs—officers will have to take time away from their normal post, and care in a hospital is expensive. That doesn’t make any sense,” said Woerner.
Great Meadow also has a specialized mental health facility, one designed to provide treatment to inmates with long- and short-term mental health issues.
“Our New York state correctional system as a whole needs mental health facilities. You have that already at Great Meadow. So, why not turn that into a system-wide or a northeast region resource that can be helpful in meeting the needs of incarcerated individuals with mental illness?” asked Woerner. “That would make all of the facilities safer, and it would leverage the investments the state has already made in building out these facilities.
According to Woerner, inmates at Great Meadow are also part of an industry program, one that produces the soap used at correctional facilities throughout the state.
“Again, you have a resource that’s there and working–one that’s producing a product that every facility uses. Now, they are going to have to recreate that somewhere else, incurring additional costs,” she noted.
Woerner said she is hopeful that Governor Hochul and officials at the DOCCS will revisit the decision to shutter Great Meadow.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not over until it’s over. We have to keep raising these questions and making the point that this facility is not well situated to being closed, It has many things to offer that with some thought could benefit the entire system. So, I think we need to keep raising these points, highlighting the things that Great Meadow does and can offer to the entire system.”
Joining the call to keep Great Meadow open is Fort Ann’s Kaylin Nabozny, the wife of a Great Meadow corrections officer and the mother of two young sons. Nabozny spearheaded a Change.org petition, one that has garnered more than 4,500 signatures.
“By organizing this, I’m trying to do the right thing and hoping to communicate with the officials who made this decision. It was a bad decision on their part,” Nabozny said.
In addition to mentioning the issues cited by Woerner, Nabozny explained that Great Meadow has the state’s largest Intermediate Care Program (ICP), a residential mental health program for seriously mentally ill inmates.
“There’s a waiting list of people at other facilities who need to be on ICP. So, what does the state plan on doing with our population of ICP individuals? Where do they plan to send them?” she asked. “We also have a medication assistant treatment program that addresses opioid use disorder. As you can imagine, the individuals in this program cannot have a lapse in treatment. Where is the state’s action plan showing how these individuals are going to be transferred without a lapse in treatment? Where are they going? Is there room for them?”
According to Nabozny, if the state had chosen to close Washington Correctional, Great Meadow would have been able to take on that facility’s inmates and correctional officers.
“This would have been the ideal merger if what they wanted to do was consolidate resources and relieve staffing issues,” she said. “They should have closed Washington and brought everyone across the street to Great Meadow.”
Nabozny said families of Great Meadow employees are understandably concerned that their loved one may be transferred to a prison more than two hours away.
“We own our houses here. Our kids go to school here. It’s not sustainable for husbands or wives to drive two hours to work, and then work eight or sixteen hours and then drive two hours home,” she said.
Nabozny’s husband coaches youth soccer and t-ball, and other corrections officers volunteer on the town board or as firefighters, EMTs or scout leaders.
“They are active, vital members of our community,” she said. “And, we’re not going to have that anymore.”