The Rule of Law and Corrections

The New York State Commission of Correction's minimum standards for managing prison and jail systems in New York State are outlined in Title 9 of the New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations (NYCRR). Specifically, Part 7017 specifies personnel standards, while Part 7041 details staffing requirements. Currently, these regulations are based on a management perspective and function as reactive systems. This makes them vulnerable to irrational interpretations of workforce planning and governance, especially when there are no safeguards to assess current and future budget gaps and to ensure workforce compliance with mandated tasks and standards. An underregulated and overextended correctional workforce exposes systems to serious public safety risks for both staff and incarcerated individuals, leadership corruption designed to obscure facts, increased violence, and widespread staff burnout. 

Without clear regulatory standards and oversight, facilities operate with diminished capacity for rehabilitation and detention, undermining the objectives of the criminal justice system. Such an approach often leaves operational gaps unaddressed, which can be deliberately obscured and worsen over time due to the lack of administrative measures to prevent maladministration and harmful political discourse. 

The confluence of ineffective strategies and inexperience continues to cause ongoing disinvestment within our American criminal justice correctional systems, leading to repeated cycles of governmental dysfunction and constitutional violations. Leaders, whether elected or appointed—whether through inexperience, deliberate action, passive acquiescence, or negligent oversight—undermine the rule of law in the absence of meaningful reform. They become complicit in the erosion and violation of the fundamental principles necessary to uphold a just and orderly government. Leaders must acknowledge the need for proactive reform in correctional systems and have the courage to reshape government conditions through reason, reflection, and guided inquiry.

The Attica Prison riot was a four-day uprising in September 1971 at the Attica Correctional  Facility in New York, where over 1,200 inmates protested inhumane conditions and took 42 hostages. After days of negotiations, the state police retook the facility by force, resulting in the deaths of 33  inmates and  10 hostages. The event drew national attention to prison conditions and became a pivotal moment in the U.S. prison reform movement. 

In the 1977 decision (Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc.), the United States Supreme Court signaled a willingness to allow prison administrators to lead correctional decision-making, provided that courts and legislative bodies maintain proper oversight. This ruling emphasizes the critical importance of correctional administrators adopting a proactive rather than reactive approach to prison reform.  Such responsibility must be recognized and actively pursued.