Directives are the lifeblood of New York State Prisons. They provide instructions and regulations covering just about everything, from prisoners becoming organ donors to forbidding corrections officers from joining the Ku Klux Klan. My colleague got me into reading them, and they’re helpful to understand because CO’s like nothing more than their arbitrary power. It’s nice to remind them there’s a script for them too.
As a body of work, however, the rules of state prison are fascinating documents. They alternate between banal and completely outrageous, separated only by anodyne index numbers. There are thousands of these things, and I’ve only read a fraction. But I’ve picked out a few that I wanted to share.
Note: “DOCCS” refers to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the agency that runs New York State prisons.
Directive 4914—Incarcerated Individual Grooming Standards
When a person enters prison, they are required to submit to a haircut and a shave. It’s a buzz-cut really: “Male incarcerated individual hair length, upon completion of this initial haircut, shall not exceed one inch on any part of the head.” Beards must be shaved completely, and at no point after intake may a prisoner’s facial hair exceed one inch in length.
Transgender people, as well as members of specific religious faiths, are permitted exceptions to the initial haircut and shave, provided they possess a court order, a “Beard Permit” issued by the DOCCS Chief Counsel’s office, or prevail in a formal objection process.
DOCCS requires shaves and haircuts in order to produce (what they believe are) accurate photo-identification cards for inmates: a beard and long hair, apparently, make this impossible. And don’t think a court order, beard permit, or formal objection will stop DOCCS from getting the photo they want: even if they are restrained from barbering a new inmate, “identification photographs…shall be taken in accordance with the procedures developed to allow for digitally enhanced photographs.” [i.e. they produce a photo of an objecting inmate with a haircut, or without a beard, anyway].
After initial processing, DOCCS allows inmates to wear one, and only one, of a series of prescribed hairstyles. “No combination of approved hairstyles is allowed.” The approved hairstyles are:
- “Short, medium, and long” (presumably they mean straight)
- “Short, medium, and long pompadour”
- “Crew”
- “Butch”
- Bald (which DOCCS artfully describes as “Quo-vadis”)
- “Afro-Natural”
- “Flat Top”
- “Elevation”
I’ve done a lot of looking, and I still can’t find what DOCCS means by “Butch” or “Elevation,” but DOCCS promises that “established barbering guidelines” are found in the Department’s “Occupational Training Program.” Cornrows are the only style of braids permitted, though they are required to be in straight lines only. Individuals with long (below shoulder length) hair are not permitted to leave their cell unless it is “tied back in a ponytail.” Artificial nails and jewelry must be removed.
One thing I want to flag is the rules about changing one’s appearance. That sort of freedom is a tradeoff against commissary for poorer incarcerated people: “If, in the opinion of a Correction Officer or supervisor, an incarcerated individual drastically changes their appearance by changing the length, style, and/or color of their hair, or growing or shaving a beard and/or mustache, they will be re-photographed for identification purposes.” The cost of being photographed and producing a new ID card, of course, “will be at the expense of the incarcerated individual…”
Directive 4913—Incarcerated Individual Property
Incarcerated people are allowed a limited amount of property. In New York State, the limit is the amount that can fit in four “draft bags,” which are 23” by 40” and are produced by Corcraft. When transferring to another facility, inmates are not permitted to pack their own property, so the amount of acceptable property is largely up to a corrections officer. Sheets, pillowcases, blankets, and towels are not included in this limit, though state-issued clothing and footwear are.
There is an extremely detailed list of which items an inmate can own, and I encourage you to look over it if you have a bit of time. What is interesting to me are the limits on quantity. For example, an inmate may own no more than two cups and two bowls. Six t-shirts are permitted, as are up to six types of lotion. A prisoner is allowed up to two bow ties, but only one blanket. Four baseball caps, but only seven newspapers and fourteen magazines. Two pairs each of sweatpants and gym shorts, but up to thirty packs of cigarettes and eighty cigars. Each state prisoner is allowed one wedding ring.
Further restrictions on property can be found in Directive 4911: Packages & Articles Sent or Brought to Facilities. Here you learn that the wedding band can’t worth be more than $150, and that a new set of sheets cannot be blue, black, orange, gray, green, white, or striped. (I suppose that leaves yellow, red, pink, and purple as the acceptable options).
Of course there must be limits on a prisoner’s property; it is a necessary regulation for keeping people in cages. But what’s interesting to me is how the permitted quantities betray decades of institutional experience in the mechanisms of control. Maybe a prisoner from the eighties really liked different lotions, and so a limit of six was set to discourage him. Or someone made each court appearance in a different colored bow tie. DOCCS would be mortified by something like that. We can’t know why only shawls of less than 1 square yard are permitted, but the point is there’s a reason, or at least DOCCS claims there is.
Directive 4910—Control of and Search for Contraband
Remember in my last post how I described “the shit room”?
“I learned at another New York State facility about the concept of the “shit room,” a sadistic punishment device that CO’s prefer to the now legally-dubious long-term stays in solitary confinement. When a prisoner has caught their ire, he is strip searched on the alleged suspicion of contraband, whereafter they perform a cavity search. When nothing is found—because nothing is supposed to be found—he is locked in the ‘shit room,’ where without sanitary facilities he must defecate on the floor three times before he is released.”
“Greens and Blues“, March 5th, 2023
Maybe you thought it was a prison rumor, or a concocted story that incarcerated people use to scare people on the outside. It’s not. It’s a bona-fide DOCCS policy, written in black and white. I was astonished to find it on paper, but here it is:
I’ll leave the commentary on this one to you.
Directive 6922—Division of Correctional Industries
This is a three-page directive that describes a massive enterprise: Corcraft™, the official corporation of New York State Prisons. Everyone is familiar with the archetypal image of the prisoner stamping license plates—New York actually does this, at Auburn Correctional Facility. Corcraft, however, is much bigger than that. It employs thousands of individuals across sixteen state facilities, maintains a corporate office with executive, operations, administrative, and marketing/sales units, and provides all manner of products for sale to public agencies (and certain nonprofits).
Are you a kid in New York who receives free eyeglasses from the Board of Education? Or maybe one of the 7.4 million New Yorkers who is on Medicaid, many of whom have eyeglass prescriptions? Your eyewear is manufactured by people forced to live in cages, at Wallkill State Correctional Facility.
Do you need to call the State’s Department of Motor Vehicles for help with your car registration, license renewal, or insurance certification? Well, the prisoners at Greene Correctional Facility and Bedford Hills Correctional Facility have you covered: they operate a toll-free call center that serves as the DMV’s customer service hotline.
Perhaps you run a manufacturing company, or require some office furniture. Great Meadow “manufactures a wide variety of chemical products for commercial and institutional use.” Attica produces “metal case goods for offices and commercial applications,” including file cabinets and storage cabinets, lockers and desks. [I’m looking at you New York public schools]. Perhaps there’s been a particularly large numbers of anti-police brutality protests recently: Otisville “manufactures police road barricades for the New York City Police Department.” Or maybe for your business you require literally any item made of metal: Albion “manufactures metal products incorporating welding and metal fabrication for a variety of products including shelving, waste receptacles, and steel fireplace grills, as well as components for other industries programs.” Incarcerated people at nine different facilities are even ‘employed’ in for-hire “Hazardous Material Abatement Teams,” removing asbestos, lead paint, mold, and bird feces for a modest payment to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
There are two things I want to say about this. First: Corcraft is everywhere. You can find their logo all over public buildings, on random office furniture, and on lumbering eighteen-wheelers making local deliveries. There is a shocking presence of barely-paid labor in our everyday lives. (I say barely-paid because Corcraft’s wages begin at sixteen cents per hour.)
And second: the idea of giving State prisoners marketable skills is a good one, but the way that DOCCS goes about this doesn’t make sense. Section 162 (§162(2)(a) to be exact) of the State Finance Law exempts Corcraft from competitive bidding requirements for public agencies, and because of its ‘labor’ costs, Corcraft products are far cheaper than anything private industry can offer. So which firm is going to hire a former prisoner with skills honed at Corcraft? How could such a firm exist in the same New York State industrial space, with labor costs multiple orders of magnitude higher than Corcraft’s?
Directive 4939—Incarcerated Individual Exposure Control
What happens when a corrections officer sees you naked, or worse, walks by your cell during a moment of private…self-care? Incarcerated people do not have privacy, and CO’s have been known to order prisoners to undress as a measure of control. This directive, however, is for when a CO decides they’ve seen something they don’t want to see.
If an inmate is found to be “intentionally exposing the private area(s) of their body,” and/or “intentionally masturbating in the presence of staff and/or visitor(s),” Directive 4939 provides CO’s with a procedure to “control such behavior.” (Remember, inmates are not permitted to have curtains covering the front of their cell.)
Prisoners are given a one-time warning for “lewd conduct,” after which disciplinary measures may be taken. The Directive gives no period for this one-time warning to expire, so presumably if a CO has seen you even half-naked once, you’re forever subject to being placed on an “Exposure Control Order.” This includes the installation of an “Exposure Shield,” which is “a semi-opaque Plexiglass shield outlined with a 3” yellow painted border,” on the opening of your cell, and the affixation to your cell of an “Exposer Placard”: “A bright yellow sign measuring 8 ½” x 11”, with the word ‘EXPOSER’ imprinted on it.”
An individual subject to an Exposer Control Order is also required to wear an “Exposer Control Suit”: “a one-piece [neon] green jumpsuit with a 3” white stripe around the midsection that zips in the back and will be secured at the top with a small padlock.” A prisoner may be forced to wear this suit “whenever they are out of their cells for: 1) Interviews, 2) Group Counselling, 3) Visits, 4) Exercise.”
An Exposer Control Order lasts thirty days, and is perpetually renewable by corrections staff. Top prison officials are required to sign off on these orders, but in practice they rarely do. This happens to dozens of prisoners every year in New York, and the procedure is in use by other state prison systems (South Carolina’s jumpsuits are bright pink). New York’s neon-green jumpsuit, incidentally, is produced by Corcraft.
Directive 4425—Incarcerated Individual Tablet Program
There’s a lot going on here, but here’s what you need to know: most New York State prisoners are issued a tablet. These tablets are owned and operated by a company called JPAY, and they offer downloadable books, music, movies, and games, as well as email services. JPAY is owned by Securus, a technology company in the business of squeezing money from state prison systems and specifically state prisoners. There’s a lot going on here, and some outrageous rents being extracted from incarcerated people and their families. There’s also the State Attorney General suing JPAY for fraud, huge privacy issues, and more, so I’m going to write about JPAY in a separate post. Stay tuned.
Closing Thoughts
If you want to look for yourself, DOCCS keeps a listing of its public directives here. They take complaints by letter or email, at:
Doccs.sm.BureauOfInternalControls@doccs.ny.gov
and
Bureau of Internal Controls
Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
Harriman State Campus
1220 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12226
The point of this post, however, is not to stoke your outrage. What I am hoping to show you is the machinery behind it all: the ghoulish bureaucracy that the system requires. DOCCS has detailed instructions on how CO’s should interview the fiancé of an inmate who wants to marry. They have a document teaching CO’s how to search feces too (a tongue depressor is the recommended tool).
This is an unnatural outgrowth of our criminal legal system, the product of our obsession with a ludicrous fantasy. That we can lock people in cages to heal social violence; that accountability and responsibility live in the four walls of a cell. In New York State, it is a $3.4 billion joke. And it is evil, and it is pernicious, and it is extremely detailed.