Closure of Moriah Shock opposed by inmates and community alike
By Tim Rowland
After Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the Moriah Shock Incarceration Facility would be closing March 10, her office received a bundle of 50 letters in protest. They weren’t from employees in fear of losing their jobs, nor from business leaders concerned about the local economy. The inmates themselves, who believe the small but effective prison is giving them their best chance of survival, wrote to Albany.
If unusual for a typical prison, it is not surprising for Moriah Shock, where inmates stock food pantry shelves and cut hiking trails, and where corrections officers say beleaguered Adirondack residents have been known to cheer inmate work details arriving to help clean up after a devastating flood.
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In return, officers say, inmates feel appreciated and valued and develop connections to the communities they serve. It has led to an atmosphere where recidivism is half what it is elsewhere, according to union representatives.
Still, success can sometimes be hard to process. When state corrections officials were explaining their decision to close the prison, said Moriah Supervisor Tom Scozzafava, one of the listed reasons was that the grounds lacked a perimeter fence. But the point, Scozzafava said, is that Moriah Shock is one of the rare prisons that doesn’t need one.
Moriah is one of two shock units left in the state, the word shock pertaining to the boot camp atmosphere of pre-dawn wakeup calls, exercise and work details.
Union treasurer and drill sergeant Frank Gilbo said there are no problems with drugs or violence at Moriah Shock. The typically antagonistic relationships between inmates and guards does not exist; corrections officers root for inmates to succeed and pose for pictures with them when they leave. “Instead of warehousing inmates, we had the satisfaction of helping people out,” said former corrections officer Ike Tyler, who is now supervisor of the town of Westport.
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“Those inmates appreciate the program,” said head cook Beth Slycord. “They thank us for giving them a good day, and we treat them like our kids.”
If there is such a thing as a community prison Moriah Shock is it. At a recent street rally, the undefeated Moriah football team — in the midst of preparing for the state championship game — showed up to demonstrate its support by waving at passing cars.
Several players have parents who work at Moriah Shock, said star quarterback Rowan Swan, and there is concern about the economic fallout. But he said there is also a concern about the human fallout.
“It’s not really a jail. It’s a place where people get a second chance.”
— Rowan Swan, Moriah High School quarterback
Invisible labor
The prison has assigned trail crews to help the Department of Environmental Conservation accomplish projects such as opening campgrounds, constructing and maintaining trails and installing docks, and setting up boat launches, DEC says. Scozzafava wondered how the DEC, which is chronically short on staff, will make do without Moriah Shock.
And the effect of the outdoors on inmates has been profound, correction officers say. Inmates from the cities have found themselves in the middle of the wilderness, having never before seen a forest, much less a mountain. During a press tour in 2018 — before Covid shut down the work details in 2020 — inmates said they used the mountains as a metaphor for life. As they worked on a trail up Poke-O-Moonshine they developed the chant:
“I want to be a mountain climber,
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Want to climb higher and higher.”
Life changing experiences
For Dave Hughes, the eight months he spent at Moriah Shock was a life-changing experience. “If I had to describe how I feel about Moriah Shock in one word it would be gratitude,” he said.
An alcohol addict, he was picked up in 2013 as a repeat DWI offender under strict new laws that permanently revoked his license and presented the real possibility of years behind bars. Instead, he fit the profile of someone who could benefit from the state’s shock program. The state gave him a choice — he could idly pass the time in a prison cell or he could do some hard work at Moriah Shock, not just on mountain trails, but on himself.
Along with an unforgiving routine, Moriah Shock focuses on addiction treatment, therapy and education.
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“That place gave me the skill set to live in a small, local community, and to be self-sufficient,” Hughes said. “Without that skill set I don’t know where I’d be.”
Upon his release, employers recognized both his capabilities and his re-tooled attitude. “There are communities here that are willing to open their arms,” he said. Today, Hughes hikes a mile, regardless of the weather, to his job at the Town of Newcomb, coordinating projects that range from marketing to technology.
It’s a story Hughes doesn’t enjoy recounting, but he felt that Moriah Shock was too important to him, and others in similar circumstances, not to tell. “With that hardship, I became a stronger person,” he said.
Hard-time prisons are also notoriously hard not just on inmates, but on the corrections officers who face never-ending danger and insult. Town of Lewis Supervisor Jim Monty said he worked five years at Great Meadow Correctional Facility east of Lake George that also went by the nickname of Gladiator School.
It was wearing him out, straining his home life and he was drinking more than he should. “I could not have done another 25 years,” Monty said. Moriah Shock saved him as well. “People took pride in what they were doing with the kids,” he said. “We were teaching them that it’s OK to be tired out when you go to bed. We were teaching accountability and that when you have a problem you can talk it out.”
The crowning irony, said State Sen. Dan Stec, is that Moriah Shock represents what Albany prison reformers want — education, therapy, outlets for creativity, understanding and respect.
“By its nature, this is a prison that should be expanding, not shut down.”
— State Sen. Dan Stec
Moriah Shock’s declining numbers
The decision to close Moriah Shock, along with five other upstate prisons, is numbers-driven. By the end of the 1990s — a decade when being seen as tough on crime was popular with voters — the state prison population stood at 72,773.
But politicians learned that housing one inmate can cost up to $40,000 a year. Tough drug laws had led to incarcerations of people like Hughes who might have been better served with treatment.
With recognition of alternatives, New York prison population has declined to 31,469.
Moriah Shock, fashioned out of old industrial buildings that once housed operations of the Fisher Hill iron mine, was built with a capacity of 300. According to a June audit, 104 men were housed there, about the same size as the staff.
Stec said closing the prison would only save $17 million, but in reality it’s less than that considering all the work inmates do for the state. As such, it would make more sense to add to the population at a time when there is much work to do in Adirondack public lands..
“It’s a symbiotic relationship between the needs of the park and the needs of these guys,” he said. “They are much happier when they are out doing something.”
Monty recalled one young man in particular who blossomed under the program and was on the brink of graduation when he inexplicably broke protocols in a way he knew would get him expelled. Monty wouldn’t let it drop, and finally the young man reluctantly produced a letter from his father.
No one in the household had ever succeeded at anything, it said, and graduating from Moriah Shock would show up other members of the family.
The correction officer and the inmate had a bit of a talk — and on graduation day the young man notched his family’s first success.
“Only $17 million would be saved” said Dan Stec. No, Dan the 6 prisons closing will save the taxpayers $142 million. Typical politician who thinks their job is to collect as much taxes as possible. Prison population declines to less than half of what it was in 1999 it’s time to close this prison. It doesn’t mean that the lessons learned here at the shock unit can’t be applied elsewhere.
No, it is $17 million, not $142 million because we are only talking about this one prison. And as the article points out, it’s less than $17 million when you account for all the free labor that state gets. So why re-create this model elsewhere when it works so well here? And here in the Adirondacks is where the state needs the labor.
Anyone who wants to see the inmates at work outside the prison, AND life inside the prison, should watch the movie “Ice Palace, a Love Letter”. It is a love letter to the city of Saranac Lake, but it spends a lot of time on the inmates. Personally, I think the inmates love these work projects because it gives them some autonomy. They are told to cut ice or stack blocks but no-one is standing over them telling them do this, do that. Inside the prison there is no autonomy of course, it is a boot camp, and that is the point.
Woooow I dislike this article for so many reasons. What an unpleasant surprise from a publication for which I have some decent expectations. I’m a little short of calling this police state propaganda, not journalism, but really not by as much as I’d like for a publication I have given money and time to…:(:(
The Explorer really needs to do some soul searching about reporting that veers into current event-type topics. I say this as a subscriber and avid reader. This topic has nothing at all to do with ecological issues or the environment, with the narrow exception of a tangential relation to prison labor providing trail maintenance, which isn’t really about the trails…(just this once, let’s sail past that ship entirely)…
The punchline: if you guys want to go here, fine, but if you go here you really gotta improve the framing and perspectives offered on articles on controversial topics so that you’re not just doing stenography for institutional powers. Hec, last month you spent a LOT more time exploring in-depth the controversy surrounding the ADK Wildlife Refuge, with MUCH better reporting, than you have on an issue that arguably affects peoples’ lives SO MUCH more (apologies to all involved re the Wildlife Refuge discussion – that topic has it’s place and is important.)
Importantly, I am not disputing (most of) the facts noted, but I am *strongly disputing the framing. For example – the first paragraph implies that the sentiment expressed in this article is felt by all inmates, instead of a group that signed a letter. Quotes from “union representatives,” (which union? not even explicitly stated!) who are not objective parties to this discussion, are presented without context or verification. Every single person interviewed or quoted agrees with the framing of the article – so we are lead to assume that there are absolutely 0 people out there in the communities in question who disagree with any opinion presented here. If that’s true, why? What are the background and facts surrounding this sentiment? What are the motives of the people making these statements?
Finally, there are are also some straight-up personal opinions of the author presented as journalism. I may not disagree that, for example, being a prison officer is challenging, or that many inmates find participating in community service better for their lives than sitting in a cell – BUT when you’re mentioning those ideas in the context of reporting on a political issue and on people with political goals, as the AUTHOR of a journalism piece…welp, that is bias that the Explorer should own to having.
If I want to hear the perspective of police, prison officers and hand-selected inmates WITHOUT any other context or alternative perspectives (this part is critical) …I know (we all know, frankly) which news channels I would turn to. Does the Explorer want to be in the same league as those channels or forums? Are you really invested in keeping this publication independent and focused on ecological/environmentalist issues – which is what is emphasized so strongly on all of your fundraising emails?
….anyway, probably the harshest comment I’ve posted here. 🙁 Bummer, for real, and further – I KNOW there is a big push in many institutions in the region to be more “community-centric.” …but this ain’t the way to do it, by explicitly picking a side in a highly politicized discussion and uncritically printing what is essentially more of an op-ed than a journalism piece. 🙁
My nephew was an inmate at Moriah Shock in 1995/96 and it was very enlightening to visit him there after visiting him at the state prison in Middletown. I thought Moriah was a perfect place to serve out a sentence for a 20 year old with a first offense, albeit, a serious one. When he was released he resumed his life on Long Island, found employment, eventually married and has 2 teenage sons now. He always was the nicest kid, a real family favorite and until I read the article about closing Moriah Shock the family had forgotten about him ever being in the system. Hopefully a Moriah Shock like program still exists in the NYState Dept. of Corrections as my nephew cannot be the only successful adult to profit from such an experience and we need enlightened programs such as Moriah, especially when you read about the horrible conditions on Rikers Island or the Manhattan House of Detention. I hope Gov. Hochul changes her mind and keeps Moriah open. Someone else’s nephew might also find it transformational.
Sooo…. What is the difference between this prison and the chain gangs used for cheap labor in other parts of the country, besides the chains?
No your nephew is not the only success story to graduate from Moriah Shock. The program was a far stretch from the county jails that he had been in. I am saddened to hear that this institution is designated to be closed. I really thought we had lost my nephew to drugs until he entered Moriah Shock. I too visited as often as i could until Covid hit but i can tell you at each visit i saw my nephew growing stronger due to the support system he received inside Moriah Shock. Closing this facility is a loss to our community and to the young men who truly desire to do better. More institutions should incorporate Moriah Shocks program. I am very disappointed to hear this is closing – so many others could benefit from this program.
this comment might be a bit late, but I just read the article and am very sorry that this prison which has been a game-changer for so many young men, is to be closed. Has anyone initiated a petition to the governor? If so, I’d be happy to sign it.