COXSACKIE – In an ideal world, when a state correction officer patted down a convicted murderer – serving three life sentences – at the Coxsackie Correctional Facility on January 6, 2025, there would have been at two other correction officers standing along side him, but because of staffing shortages, we’re told, the one CO had to do it alone.

During that routine pat down, the prisoner pulled out a blade, which led to an attack, which resulted in the correction officer being cut.

“We ask these people to do a dangerous, thankless job,” said Senator Rob Ortt (R – Minority Leader), during an afternoon news conference at the capitol on Monday. “Then we remove every resource and tool that allows them to do it safely.”

Republican lawmakers gathered at the capitol, demanding the elimination of the so-called HALT legislation (Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement) that they say prohibits correctional authorities from penalizing and thus preventing violent inmates severely enough to disincentify them from attacking prison guards.

Case in point, the cafeteria chaos that erupted at the Five Points Correctional Facility, a supermax prison in Romulus, New York back on January 22, 2025, where COs were punched and pummeled by a mob of miscreant inmates.

“There’s been a lot of prison reforms and criminal justice reforms and none of them have made anyone safer,” Ortt opined.

Back in Coxsackie, back in March 2024, there was a riot in the rec yard during which correction officers needed tear gas to quell the unsettling disturbance.

It’s episodes like the ones described above that prison employees say frighten them, threatens their lives and livelihoods, and forces them onto picket lines where they have now been staging unsanctioned and illegal walk-outs more more than a week.

“We can keep everybody safe,” Ortt said, “We can be fair to everyone but we have to be realistic about the jobs that we ask our correction officers to do and what we ask their families to endure.”

Over the weekend, state police began serving judicial orders to striking correction officers at their homes, notifying them they’re in violation of New York’s Taylor Laws, which prohibit public employees from walking off the job, and reminding them arrests or loss of health insurance may follow.

Meanwhile, negotiations aimed at settling the stalemate involving Department of Corrections officials, NYSCOPBA, and the governor’s office, continued on Monday. When NewsChannel 13 asked if any progress had been made, we received no response.