jdagostino@observertoday.com
OBSERVER file photo
Positive COVID-19 cases continue to rise for inmates at the Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility.
Since the afternoon of Dec. 30, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision has not allowed visitation across the state including Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in Brocton.
This, however, has not slowed a recent COVID-19 surge among those being held in confinement. According to the most recent state numbers available through Friday, 49 inmates at the location have tested positive all in the last eight weeks. This has some in the north county community voicing concerns that a second cluster of cases involving the employees is occurring at the minimum security level facility for males and females.
Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in Brocton.
Since the afternoon of Dec. 30, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision has not allowed visitation across the state including Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in Brocton.
This, however, has not slowed a recent COVID-19 surge among those being held in confinement. According to the most recent state numbers available through Friday, 49 inmates at the location have tested positive all in the last eight weeks. This has some in the north county community voicing concerns that a second cluster of cases involving the employees is occurring at the minimum security level facility for males and females.
WATERTOWN â A group met in Public Square on Saturday afternoon to protest the upcoming closure of Watertown Correctional Facility, which is scheduled to shut down at the end of March.
The demonstrators displayed signs for the honking cars passing by and talked about what the closure means for the employees at the facility and their families.
Among them was Watertown corrections officer Tom Dier. He will be traveling over the next few days to the homes of a few of his coworkers â who are in quarantine because they got COVID-19, apparently from the prison where they work â to pick up the paperwork they need to submit to stay employed.
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State and local officials, union leaders and employees are hoping to stop a state decision to close the Clinton Annex prison in Dannemora, New York. WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley was at a rally Saturday as closure by the end of March looms.
In late December the Cuomo administration announced that the Watertown and Gowanda Correctional facilities and the Clinton Annex, part of the Clinton Correctional Facility, will be closed by March 30th.
On Saturday dozens of local officials, employees and union members gathered in Dannemora for a Save the Annex rally. Union officials say the Annex has operated for 122 years and NYSCOPBA Northern Region Vice President John Roberts says there’s no reason to close it now. “We’re very proud to support this local rally for the Clinton Annex. Three hundred jobs in this community is a lot of jobs to cut.”