Closing Great Meadow prison brings mixed emotions
Indian Lake's Tim Reynolds back covering the Olympics
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When the bucolic beauty of upstate New York is interrupted by a cement guard tower right out of a James Cagney movie, it can be down right haunting.
Whether you are coming down the hill into Dannemora, riding down main street in Auburn or cruising up Route 4 outside Fort Ann, the reality of those prison walls is a reminder of the evil in the world.
We mostly don't think about the life that goes on within those walls or what the inmates did to get there. And we probably don't think about the men and women who work there either.
Until the state decides to close one.
Heading east on Route 22, the Great Meadow Correctional Facility is a sprawling complex that once housed some 1,500 of the worst our society has to offer.
That numbers has dwindled to nearly 500 these days with some 700 employed there.
Those numbers don't work in any business.
Nobody is sure where the name "Great Meadow" came from, but construction for the first 1,000-foot cell block began in 1909.The original intent was an institution to house the criminally insane. But the New York State Legislature changed course in 1909 and allocated $350,000 to build New York's fourth prison for men. It started as a residence for first-time offenders. The prison wall - built by inmates - was not even added until 1924.
It was all part of budding network of prisons built over the years in rural upstate communities with little else going for them.
But what the state giveth, it can also taketh away.
New York State announced this month the Great Meadow Correctional Facility would be closing this fall.
That comes with outrage in some corners for the families who will be uprooted and the economic hit delivered to a county that is always looking for more jobs.
But the closing certainly makes sense. With crime trending down for decades, New York has regularly scrapped prison complexes across the state.
Mount McGregor in Wilton closed 10 years ago.
Moriah Shock was shut down two years ago.
You'd think the closing of a prison would be a good thing for the people in this state. Less crime means fewer criminals and safer communities.
But places like Great Meadow have provided well-paying jobs for more than a century. I suspect most of us would not want our children to work in a prison and finding people to do those jobs has become more and more difficult in recent years.
The conditions can be abominable, not only for those incarcerated, but for those who work there.
Studies have shown prison employees often have higher incidence of substance abuse, suicide and domestic violence. Those well-paying jobs with all that overtime come with strings attached.
The reality is we don't know the half of what life is like inside those walls. Newspapers rarely cover them and the Department of Corrections is difficult to get information from.
Three years ago an online, nonprofit news organization called New York Focus called Great Meadow "The worst prison in New York State."
It said it was worse than the notorious New York City jail Rikers Island.
That should get your attention.
According to New York Focus, Great Meadow had the highest rate of inmate suicides and the highest rate of recorded staff violence.
New York Focus was establish in 2020 by a group of young journalists intent on covering state government, including prisons. The New York Times did a story on its efforts.
In its story on Great Meadow in November 2001, New York Focus wrote:
"In recent months, according to incarcerated people and staff of watchdog groups who visited the prison, the prison has seen near-daily assaults on incarcerated people by staff, little protection against extreme heat, and ongoing medical neglect. When incarcerated people do report these abuses, their grievances are rarely acted upon, multiple incarcerated people and their family members told New York Focus and The Nation. Many stay silent for fear of retaliation.
"I will put it to you like this,” Gerard Bastien, currently incarcerated at Great Meadow, told New York Focus and The Nation. “You see how police are killing people outside and get away with it? It's the same thing in here, but worse."
That's a pretty shocking account about a local institution.
Yet, local Assemblyman Matt Siimpson said closing the prison was "unwise" and state Sen. Dan Stec posted on his official state Senate webpage: "Don't Close Great Meadow."
Both are obviously more concerned about the economic impact than what is going on inside those walls.
The New York Focus article used sources you rarely see in prison stories - the prisoners themselves.
They repeatedly made accusations of beatings and assaults.
One of the big issues at Great Meadow was that over 40 percent of the prison population was on the prison's mental health caseload. It appears Great Meadow has become a dumping ground for mental health cases.
In 2019, a 67-year-old inmate who struggled with anxiety, schizophrenia, epilepsy and substance abuse died of a heart attack. But several inmates told investigations the inmate had been severely beaten by guards two hours before his death. Concerns were raised that employees were not getting the enough training.
Between 2017 and 2019, the prison issued 245 violations for assault on staff by inmates. That was the highest number among the state's 52 prisons.
"I don't think that's a naturally occurring phenomenon," said Jennifer Scaife, the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York to New York Focus. "There are certain conditions created at that prison due to its punitive culture, paramilitary organization of the security staff and the relative lack of opportunities for programs, recreation and other positive activities."
New York Focus pointed out that despite the high rates of staff violence, Great Meadow had the second fewest number of grievances about staff misconduct in 2019.
Many inmates told the news organization their grievances were not recorded. The reporting makes you wonder if there has been an institutional failure and if it has been addressed.
The announcement of Great Meadow's closing came suddenly and without much of a plan on how to use the infrastructure in the future. The state does not have a good track record in this regard.
When Mount McGregor closed a decade ago, there was talk of reusing the property as a location for prison movies, then possibly a resort to take advantage of the view, but nothing has come to pass, although the Grant Cottage historic site has benefitted by acquiring some land to expand its operation.
Ultimately, having fewer prisons is a good thing, especially if that prison is dysfunctional.
Closing Great Meadow is an opportunity for Washington County and the state should absolutely help in that regard.
But ultimately, maybe returning the prison to its previous incarnation - a great meadow - is for the best.
Olympic accomplishment
Tim Reynolds, a former Post-Star sportswriter who now writes for the Associated Press, is again covering the Olympics.
As a high school kid who grew up in Indian Lake, Tim managed to talk his way into part-time sportswriter gig in the 1990s. We couldn't get him to leave. He had talent and ambition and when we insisted he go back to college to finish his degree, well, it didn't last long.
Tim eventually landed at The Associated Press and he was the first person I saw when I arrived at the media center to cover the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Tim has since covered multiple Olympics - in addition to his NBA beat gig - and I'm sure he will be in the middle of any major story that breaks in Paris.
Jimmer loses
Watching the 3x3 basketball event at the Olympics Tuesday was a first for me.
I've played three-on-three basketball at the YMCA, but never watched it competitively. Glens Falls' Jimmer Fredette was the main attraction for the U.S. team, but it came up short in its first game against Serbia, one of the best teams in the world, 22-14.
The competition was fast-paced and took only 30 minutes to play Tuesday.
Fredette was interviewed after the game on national television.
The round robin tournament continues Wednesday afternoon.
Checking prices
Here is an interesting item from Warren County's weekly newsletter.
The Warren County Department of Weights and Measures - raise your hand if you knew the county even had such a department - took part in a national price-checking effort earlier this year where pricing accuracy was measured by comparing the advertised price of goods at retail outlets to what customers were charged at checkout.
Occasionally, we did stories like this when the state would do a random check to see if gas pumps were starting and stopping when they were supposed to. I was often surprised to find out, the meter started clicking before the gas started coming out.
In this case, Weights and Measures Director Jeff Woodell said the inspection failure rate in Warren County was 23 percent.
The fact that one in four failed seems significant to me.
Of the 5,571 locations that passed the inspection, 1,508 still had some pricing errors.
In its report, the department concluded: "There are significant areas for improvement in overall pricing accuracy."
https://warrencountyny.gov/weights/pricingaccuracy
Selling hockey
North Country Public Radio's "North Country at Work" series profiled Sean Driscoll of the Adirondack Thunder this past week.
Driscoll is the director of ticket sales for the Thunder and a Glens Falls native.
Check out this story:
Final thoughts
Heather Cox Richardson, historian and columnist, summed up the times we live in the conclusion of Monday's column:
"When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. He passed it to us. It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope."
That sums it up perfectly.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Ken wrote: “…local Assemblyman Matt Siimpson said closing the prison was "unwise" and state Sen. Dan Stec posted on his official state Senate webpage: "Don't Close Great Meadow."
It’s been part of Republican DNA for decades to advocate for fewer state programs, less state spending, lower state taxes, and reduce wasteful spending. We hear it from local and state-level Republicans repeatedly — cut waste.
So when the state does cut waste, the hue and cry comes from the very same politicians who decried that waste to begin with.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.
I have posted several comments in your former paper the Post Star about this closing. What I find fascinating is the ignorance of some of the follow up comments blaming the DEMs and the Hochul for politically singling out this ancient, dangerous, costly prison to close it rather than the big picture you have outlined. It makes NO sense to continue to operate a mammoth prison with less than 1/3 of the capacity and more employees on payroll than prisoners being held. I don't know what the excess capacity is in other prisons around the state, but I'll bet the annual operating costs per prisoner for this facility are among the highest in the state, with one of the worst performance records. Sadly, Washington County was basically denied the extension of interstate 87 back in the 1950's by a decision by NY State not to fund and build a key piece of the highway due to Wash. Cty. being so rural and agriculturally based. So, Rutland VT section of the Eisenhower system has no connector running over to the greater Glens Falls region and 149 tends to be the major highway (at great expense and traffic congestion..aka the heroin highway for drug dealers delivering to VT). That has cost the county and local towns dearly for transportation access , drug and sex trafficking, and now most all of the Industrial Revolution industries are gone (GE was last really big closing). Sadly the county is run by a bunch of "good old boy" farmers and they have watched since the turn of the century as thousands of good paying jobs have been lost. A plan to deal with this closing should have been in the works years ago, but the dismal economic development efforts now will just have to accept that the northern part of the county like Whitehall will fall in to worse times than it already has. A shadow of its once great situation as a transportation hub 150 years ago with the canal and a major railroad hub, it's now a shambles where buildings have literally fallen down due to abandonment and the drug scene is horrific. No major grocery store, and when McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts close, you know the demographics of the community have hit rock bottom. Guess what? Everyone knew this prison would close at some point? It was never IF, it was WHEN, but the flat footed County Supervisors kicked the can down the road only to hit this dead end. Luckily, Irving Paper in Fort Edward is still investing to build their new warehouse. IF they shut down, that would be the largest, private, tax paying company in the county to close. While it's a beautiful rural county with lots of things to do and see, to date there is not ONE hotel in the entire county, nor ONE large restaurant that can handle 2 bus loads of tourists for a meal at the same time and get them in and out in an hour! A few motels, BnB's and a dismal future on the horizon! Why is that? NO VISION from the leaders would be a great place to start doing research.