As Gov. Kathy Hochul weighs which prisons to close this year amid declining incarceration rates and a corrections staffing crisis, advocates and formerly incarcerated people are calling for one of New York’s most infamous facilities — Attica — to shutter its gates for good.

The state budget finalized in May includes a plan to close up to three state prisons. The sites are expected to be announced by the end of the year. 

Hochul and other state officials haven’t disclosed which of the 42 potential sites are on the chopping block or detailed in any meaningful way how the locations will be selected. 

But advocates want to see Attica on the list, along with two other prisons near Syracuse: Marcy Correctional Facility and Mid-State Correctional Facility. 

They cite the long history of abuses at Attica and the beatdown deaths of Robert Brooks, 43, at Marcy on Dec. 9, 2024, and Messiah Nantwi, 22, at Mid-State on March 1. Multiple correction officers have been criminally charged with murdering Brooks and Nantwi by fatally kicking and punching them as well as trying to cover up what happened.

“That would send a message to the entire community that when these prison guards step out of line and take somebody’s life, the prison should be closed,” said Renny Smith, who spent 27 years behind bars and is now a member of the coalition of Incarcerated People’s Lives Matter, a nonprofit that advocates for people in prison. 

“That should be the policy, that should be the norm,” he added. “That’s one way to hold these prison guards in check.” 

State Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the Committee on Crime and Correction, agreed. 

“A prison where an incarcerated New Yorker can be tortured and killed by corrections staff, while other staff watched without intervening, is not a place where people can expect to be safe,” she told THE CITY. 

The push to shutter Attica comes more than five decades after the infamous 1971 prison uprising, where 43 people — mostly incarcerated men — were killed after state troopers stormed the facility. 

Despite decades of calls for reform, the maximum-security prison continues to be associated with allegations of brutality and inhumane conditions. Smith and other advocates argue that closing Attica would not only address that cycle of abuse but also serve as a powerful statement against the state’s punitive past.

“Attica is a prison notorious for systemic racism and especially prevalent violence,” Salazar said. 

The push for the closure of Attica isn’t unanimous. 

Attica is fully equipped with stationary surveillance cameras and has received significant capital improvements over the past several years. The Wyoming County lockup is also one of the largest prisons in the state with room for 2,253 people. 

Overall, New York’s state inmate population has decreased over the last two decades, from a high of over 72,649 in 1999 to 31,194 as of June 2, according to prison records. 

That drop — driven by criminal-justice reforms, changes in sentencing laws and a declining crime rate — has led to a major reduction in the number of state prison facilities throughout the state. Since 2009, the state has closed 32 prisons, saving hundreds of millions of dollars, according to budget records.

Many of the prisons closed were smaller facilities designed to house lower-level offenders. 

As for this year’s shutdowns, Hochul has noted correction officers will be allowed to transfer to other facilities. 

“When any prison is closed, there will be no job losses,” she told reporters in May. “I need every single person who is a corrections officer to transition either to an ading facility or to have consolidations.” 

The financial heartbeat of some upstate towns where the prison serves as the main source of employment is at stake. Hochul originally proposed clo to five prisons this year but that was pared back to three, likely due to pushback from upstate lawmakers, according to prison insiders. 

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision last year closed Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County and Sullivan Correctional Facility in Sullivan County. 

Another potential target for closure this year is Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, near the Canadian border. The maximum security facility is where two convicted murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, escaped in June 2015. 

Correction officers at the prison, which holds 2,959 people, also played a key role in the 22-day wildcat strike earlier this year, according to department insiders. 

Collins Correctional Facility in Erie County, where the strike began, is also a possible target, according to a media reports. 

Thomas Mailey, DOCCS chief spokesperson, said the department will “carefully review the operations” at each facility before coming up with a possible list for closures.

The review includes: physical infrastructure, program offerings, security levels, specialized medical and mental health services, according to Mailey. It also takes into consideration “the proximity of other facilities in the area to minimize the impact to staff, potential re-use options and areas of the state where prior closures have occurred in order to minimize the impact to communities,” he added. 

But the process is done entirely behind the scenes without any input from the public. 

“It’s concerning that we all know so little about the process by which (the state prison system) is deciding to close facilities,” said Antony Gemmell, a Legal Aid Society supervising attorney in the Prisoner Rights Project. 

“It makes sense that the system would shrink,” he added. “That should be a trend, and to the extent that it is a trend, there does need to be a greater level of transparency.”