Demand transparency about what happens in prisons

The recent unexpected death of 24-year-old Anthony Myrie while he was incarcerated at Greene Correctional Facility is shocking in its own right. But according to widely shared social media posts by Anthony’s loved ones, his wife did not immediately receive information from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision about the circumstances under which he died. Instead, during those terrible hours following their final conversation, she pieced together fragments of what happened based on calls from other incarcerated people and from staff at the facility.

At the Correctional Association of New York, we receive phone calls and emails from family members of people incarcerated in prisons across the state. Too often we hear from family members who are distraught by lack of information — or misinformation — about the location and well-being of their loved ones.

Last November, we heard from the mother of Antwoine Fort, who knew that her son had been transferred to Attica. She feared the worst when his name was no longer showing up on the state’s “inmate lookup” page — Antwoine had written letters that expressed increasing despair — but she was unable to get conclusive information from the department about her son’s whereabouts. We later learned that Antwoine, who was 31, had died by suicide.

Family members, who are at the mercy of slow bureaucratic

processes designed to protect the state from litigation and loss of reputation, contact us because they know that we are the only independent organization with authority under state law to conduct oversight of prisons in New York. They hope we might be able to provide answers, or to hold the department accountable. We work to close the gap between what happens inside prison and what the public knows, between the horrors of life in prison and what is considered acceptable treatment of human beings.

Recent public outrage over conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal facility in Brooklyn, has been fueled by family members and loved ones of incarcerated people. Their collective voices have called attention to the disregard for human dignity and abject suffering that defines incarceration in the United States. There is a key distinction between MDC and the majority of New York state’s 54 prisons: MDC is in the heart of Brooklyn. Family members can wage visible protests in a densely populated urban center. People incarcerated there can look out the windows and see their loved ones standing on the street below. When prisons are sited far from metropolitan areas, it’s more difficult to hold the people who run them accountable for issues that gravely threaten the dignity and health of people in prison and that undermine the legitimacy of state government.

Incarcerated people should at the very least expect to be kept safe from harm while in the care and custody of the state. Family members should get timely and accurate information about their loved ones, particularly in matters of life or death. The public must share the concern for our fellow New Yorkers by demanding transparency about what happens inside prisons and calling for an end to the conditions that allow these tragedies to occur.