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'A survival lifeline': Families decry ban on care packages in NY prisons
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Sep 27, 2022
Modified Sep 27, 2022
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Michelle Bocanegra
By
Michelle Bocanegra
Published Sep 27, 2022
Modified Sep 27, 2022
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Families and loved ones of incarcerated people around New York state voiced their frustration over a state policy that severely limits their ability to send care packages of food and other essentials.
The ban, which was broadly enacted in August by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, after a pilot phase this spring, prevents people in the state’s correctional facilities from receiving packages from in-person visitors – many of whom are family members bringing in fresh produce that might otherwise spoil if delivered by mail. Activists in New York City gathered in front of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Manhattan offices just before noon on Tuesday.
“These are small, small pleasures,” said Arlene Normile, whose son is detained at the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York. “It’s a treat beyond words for them to get a package from home.”
To be deprived of packages from home — “it’s cruelty. It’s absolutely cruel,” Normile said.
In addition to the in-person restrictions, packages by mail are now only accepted from an approved list of vendors. Families are also limited to two non-food packages each year, which some criticized for making prisoners reliant on commissaries they say are notoriously unreliable.
Jeannie Colón, Bronx community leader for the advocacy group Release Aging People in Prison, said her incarcerated husband has become increasingly concerned over what this means for his access to personal hygiene products. Essentials in the prison commissary are often out of stock, she said.
“There is no toilet paper. There is no soap,” Colón said. “What's important to him is healthy hygiene. He doesn't feel well if he's not clean.”
The event was part of a statewide demonstration against the policy, with protests outside of New York City including events in Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany.
DOCCS, the state prison agency that runs more than 40 facilities, has rolled out the new policy with the aim of curtailing the entry of drugs, weapons and other contraband into the system. A spokesperson for the state prison agency said hundreds of packages were found to be hiding contraband in recent years, with more than 500 packages between January and August last year.
According to a statement from the agency, “there has been only one package with contraband since the full implementation of the program.”
But people whose loved ones are in state facilities said families who were already subject to a slate of rules around packages before the rollout of the new policy are getting an unfair share of the blame for how contraband ends up in prisons. They said the new rules are harmful not just to prisoners, but families who have to bear the financial burden of transmitting packages through approved vendors — a task that advocates said is difficult to nearly impossible for low-income families.
At Sing Sing, the maximum security prison in Ossining, the new restrictions have barred the delivery of fresh produce, once available from a local food stand, to families entering the prison walls.
The policy rolled out as a pilot in May that was expanded over several months. It has been slammed as a revival of a once-rescinded policy under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who walked back its rollout in 2018.
“As a formerly incarcerated woman, and someone who has an incarcerated family member doing 25 to life, I know we know the importance of packages,” said Aqirah Stanley, deputy director of Alliance of Families for Justice. “Packages are a survival lifeline to continue to live.”
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