acerbone@adirondackdailyenterprise.com
The Federal Correctional Institute at Ray Brook is seen in April 2016. The buildings were originally built to house athletes for the 1980 Winter Olympics in nearby Lake Placid. Converting it to a prison afterward was part of the original plan. (Enterprise file photo â Antonio Olivero) RAY BROOK The federal Bureau of Prisons reported Tuesday that 34 inmates at the Federal Correctional Institute at Ray Brook have tested positive for COVID-19, the most currently active cases ever at the prison since the start of the pandemic. BOP data shows no staff testing positive for the virus. This prison has seen several spikes of the virus over the past 10 months. The first case was reported in late March. In April, transmission spiked with six inmates and nine staff members testing positive. In June, four inmates and one staff member tested positive. In October one inmate tested positive. At the start of December five inmates had tested positiv
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Clinton-Dannemora guard tower. Photo: Natasha Haverty
Dec 21, 2020 Two state correctional facilities in the North Country will permanently close in March 2021, affecting hundreds of prison jobs in the region.
On a conference call Monday morning, state officials announced that Watertown Correctional Facility, the annex at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, and Gowanda Correctional Facility south of Buffalo will close next spring.
According to state data, the prison in Watertown has more than 300 full-time prison workers, while more than 200 officers work at the annex in Dannemora, according to NYSCOPBA, the union representing corrections officers.
John Roberts, who works for NYSCOPBA representing officers in the North Country, said he was surprised by the news, especially the timing of it.
acerbone@adirondackdailyenterprise.com There are 250 cases of COVID-19 in Franklin and Essex counties as of Friday, with Franklin County setting new record numbers of cases daily and correctional facilities in both counties seeing the highest rates of inmate cases ever. Essex County reported a COVID-19-related death on Friday.
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– Franklin County again has a new highest number of active positive cases ever. With 38 new cases reported Friday, the total of 187 current cases includes many in Bare Hill and Upstate correctional facilities. Of the 38 new cases Friday, 22 were inmates, according to Franklin County data. Eleven cases were resolved Friday bringing the total number of people who have recovered from the virus in Franklin County to 474. This is of 669 people who have tested positive here this year. There have been eight deaths related to COVID-19, most at the Alice Center nursing home in Malone.
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The Legal Aid Society is suing the state for the release of information on the spread of COVID-19 in prisons, arguing that the Department of Corrections has failed to identify the facilities where officers have contracted the virus, making it impossible to trace how widespread the virus is within the prison system.
“The virus doesn t distinguish between correctional officers, correctional staff, counselors, and our clients who are locked up,” Robert Quackenbush, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project, said. “If the interest is public health, it doesn’t make sense for the statistics to make those distinctions either.”