Prison Housing Units Closing

The state Department of Correctional Services announced Thursday it is cutting costs by temporarily closing 22 housing units at 17 state prisons, including five units in the Watertown hub.

Erik J. Kriss, a DOCS spokesman, said no one employed at the affected facilities would lose his or her job as a result of each consolidation, wherein two underpopulated dorms would be merged into one. Locally, 60-bed units in Cape Vincent, Gouverneur and Riverview facilities will be closed. Two units, totaling 46 beds, would be left unused at the Watertown Correctional Facility.

"Everyone who is there and is working will continue to have their job," he said. "They may just report to a different housing unit."

Mr. Kriss said the consolidations will result in DOCS offering 149 fewer jobs, including 24 locally, by not staffing the closed units. The annual savings would be about $8.94 million.

Randy Page, the northern region vice president of the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, said the 10 prisons being consolidated north of the state Thruway, including two units in Franklin County, will be "a devastating blow for an officer working downstate right now."

"Those are 65, 68 jobs that are no longer available to those people working downstate that are trying to come up," he said. "That won't mean those dorms won't be filled up eventually. But I don't see it, with the numbers falling the way they are."

Mr. Kriss said the consolidations would leave 1,023 prison beds "sitting there."

If trends reverse and the number of inmates increases, he said, the agency "just has to turn the lights on and put officers back in those units. But we don't have to pay for them now, except minimally."

Cape Vincent, Gouverneur and Riverview in Ogdensburg have 882 beds each. Watertown has 670 beds.

The agency closed a 30-bed unit and a 22-bed unit in Watertown in 2008.

Mr. Kriss said the plan would be re-evaluated after the 2010-11 budget is enacted. The agency has proposed closing the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility, which is not affected by this consolidation.