Fired guards, empty posts: New York prisons still can’t fill more than half their jobs

New York’s state prisons are struggling with rising violence and too few workers: 56% of prison staff positions are vacant. The shortage got worse after the 2025 guard strike, and it is driving people away from the job.

That wildcat walkout lasted three weeks. Afterward, Gov. Kathy Hochul fired roughly 2,000 corrections officers. Strikers pointed to bad working conditions and to laws that Democratic legislators had passed. Prisoner advocates saw another link: Robert Brooks was fatally beaten at the Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica, and 10 officers were later indicted in the case. Most guards went back to work, but the staffing gap never closed, and New York has paid over $1 billion to bring in the National Guard to help cover it.

HALT solitary confinement law at the center of the fight

Much of the dispute centers on HALT, a state law that restricts how solitary confinement can be used. Democrats in the Legislature approved it, and its limits have applied since 2023. Supporters, including advocates and a large share of lawmakers, praised those limits. Many officers see it differently, saying the law took away their means of disciplining people for misconduct, and strikers carried picket signs demanding its repeal. To get workers back on the job, Hochul agreed to study the concerns about HALT. The changes that study recommended have still not been put in place.

At an August press conference, Hochul called the shortage a crisis. “I am trying so hard to deal with the prison staffing shortage crisis, and it is a crisis,” she said. She pointed to a new recruiting program, a lower minimum age for officers and added incentives.

Prison staffing in the race for governor

Hochul’s Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, and others in his party blame laws that Democrats backed, and Blakeman has vowed to repeal them. Whoever wins will take over a prison system still recovering from the strike and facing rival reform proposals.

Kellan Livsey, 31, grew up in Plattsburgh near the Canadian border, when eight state prisons stood within an hour’s drive. Good pay, benefits and a retirement drew him to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, where he started in 2018. The state has since shut 13 prisons, which he said made the work feel unstable, and mandatory back-to-back 12-hour shifts have worn on him. “The job makes you age,” he said.