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    N.Y. Corrections Department Issues Ultimatum to Striking Officers

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    The department agreed to some of the officers’ demands but said that those who did not return to work on Friday would face disciplinary action and possible criminal charges.Corrections officers who staged unauthorized strikes that have sowed chaos across New York State’s prisons for the last two and a half weeks received an ultimatum on Thursday night: Return to work on Friday or face termination, disciplinary action and the possibility of criminal charges.In exchange for the officers’ returning to work, the state would place a 90-day pause on some provisions of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, known as HALT, which limits the use of solitary confinement for inmates, Daniel F. Martuscello III, commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said in a news conference Thursday night.The department will also create a committee to study the law, which many corrections officers say has made their jobs more dangerous and difficult.Striking officers have also complained about staffing shortages and forced overtime, with some being required to work 24-hour shifts. The shifts of workers who return to duty on Friday will be limited to 12 hours, Mr. Martuscello said. When all workers are back in place and the prisons return to normal operations, he said, workers will not be forced to work shifts longer than eight hours.Dozens of corrections officers and sergeants have been fired for participating in the illegal strikes, Jackie Bray, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said Thursday evening. Others who refuse to return to work on Friday will also be fired, and will face possible disciplinary action, civil contempt charges or criminal prosecution, Ms. Bray said.Those who return to work on Friday can avoid all of that, Ms. Bray said. Striking corrections officers and sergeants who already quit, who were fired, or who face contempt charges or other disciplinary actions will have their records swept clean and their jobs reinstated, but only if they accept the terms offered Thursday night.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Baltimore State’s Attorney to Withdraw Motion to Vacate Adnan Syed’s Conviction

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      The case of Mr. Syed, who has spent decades in prison for the murder of his high school girlfriend, was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.”The Baltimore City state’s attorney announced on Tuesday that his office would withdraw a motion to vacate the conviction against Adnan Syed, who has spent decades in prison while fighting charges that he had killed his high school girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.Mr. Syed’s case was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial,” which presented new evidence and led to a swell of interest in the case. The previous Baltimore prosecutor had asked a judge to overturn the conviction in 2022, citing issues with initial evidence and other possible suspects.Though the charges against Mr. Syed were dropped that year, his conviction was later reinstated and Maryland’s highest court ordered a redo of the hearing that freed him.In a statement, the Baltimore City state’s attorney, Ivan J. Bates, said that his office had determined that the motion to vacate the conviction by his predecessor contained “falsehoods and misleading statements.”“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Mr. Bates said.The release of “Serial” in 2014 raised doubts about the facts around the case. The podcast was downloaded more than 100 million times in its first year and brought national public attention to Mr. Syed’s case. (In 2020, The New York Times Company bought Serial Productions, the company behind the podcast.)This is a developing story. More

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      Inmate Dies at N.Y. Prison as Corrections Officers’ Strike Continues

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      The 61-year-old man was found unresponsive in his cell at Auburn Correctional Facility, one of dozens of state prisons where corrections officers have walked off the job over working conditions.An inmate at a New York State prison was pronounced dead on Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell, state officials said.The inmate, Jonathan Grant, 61, was found on Saturday morning at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County, just west of Syracuse, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.Security and medical workers at the prison and a member of the National Guard tried to revive him but were unsuccessful, said Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the corrections department.The cause of Mr. Grant’s death is under investigation. He had been unwell, according to two prisoners at Auburn and another person who reviewed information about Mr. Grant’s health. That person said Mr. Grant had had several strokes: At least five were documented, including at least one in the past few weeks. The two prisoners said Mr. Grant had asked for medical help days earlier but had been brushed off. The corrections department did not respond to questions about Mr. Grant’s health before his death.Mr. Grant entered custody in 2011 and was serving a sentence of 34 to 40 years for first-degree rape and burglary, Mr. Mailey said.His death comes amid mounting tension and public scrutiny of the state’s prison system. Corrections officers at dozens of facilities, including Auburn, have continued wildcat strikes for days — without their union’s authorization and in defiance of a judge’s order — to protest what they say are dangerous working conditions, severe staffing shortages and forced overtime. Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, deployed National Guard soldiers to act as replacement workers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Sunday Read: ‘What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons’

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      Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioWhen David Muhammad was 15, his mother moved from Oakland, Calif., to Philadelphia with her boyfriend, leaving Muhammad in the care of his brothers, ages 20 and 21, both of whom were involved in the drug scene. Over the next two years, Muhammad was arrested three times — for selling drugs, attempted murder and illegal gun possession.For Muhammad, life turned around. He wound up graduating from Howard University, running a nonprofit in Oakland called the Mentoring Center and serving in the leadership of the District of Columbia’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. Then he returned to Oakland for a two-year stint as chief probation officer for Alameda County, in the same system that once supervised him.Muhammad’s unlikely elevation came during a remarkable, if largely overlooked, era in the history of America’s juvenile justice system. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of young people incarcerated in the United States declined by an astonishing 77 percent. Can that progress be sustained — or is America about to reverse course and embark on another juvenile incarceration binge?There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Frannie Carr Toth, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, and Krish Seenivasan. More

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      Nine-Month Manhunt for French Fugitive Finally Produces an Arrest

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      A French convict was arrested in Romania months after he had been freed in a brazen daytime ambush that killed two prison guards, authorities said.A French inmate who fled police after armed assailants attacked a prison convoy in May was apprehended in Romania, French officials said Saturday. His capture ended a monthslong hunt for the man, whose violent escape resulted in the deaths of two prison guards.French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed in a statement on X that Mohamed Amra, the man who was whisked away by two gunmen in a brazen daytime attack, had been taken into custody with the cooperation of the Romanian government.President Emmanuel Macron hailed his capture as “a tremendous success,” and thanked investigators who had been tracking Mr. Amra “for months and months.” He added: “I am thinking of the families of the prison staff he had killed.”The Paris prosecutor’s office said the man arrested was “very likely” to be Mr. Amra and that investigators were working to conduct the necessary verifications.Violent prison breaks are rare in France. The two prison guards were the first to be killed in the line of duty in 32 years, and the case raised uncomfortable questions about France’s overburdened prison system and whether authorities had fully grasped how dangerous the inmate, a violent criminal known as La Mouche, or The Fly, was.He had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for burglary, one of numerous convictions for crimes including extortion and assault. But he was also under investigation on more serious charges — in Marseille, in connection with a kidnapping and homicide and in Rouen, in connection with an attempted homicide and extortion case.An undated photo of Mohamed Amra.InterpolFrench news outlets had reported that Mr. Amra had been involved in international drug trafficking and organized crime, but Laure Beccuau, the top Paris prosecutor, said at a news conference in May that Mr. Amra had no drug-related convictions.Officials have not released details about the investigation into the other people involved in the brutal ambush. During the May attack, assailants rammed a police van carrying Mr. Amra and then hooded men with automatic weapons circled the van, firing bullets into the vehicle for over two minutes.The attackers fled in stolen cars that were later found burned. The attack, which came as France was trying to project an image of law and order ahead of the Paris Olympics, was captured on video by security cameras and bystanders, and videos were later shared on X.It occurred on the same day that a Senate committee completed a report on rampant drug trafficking in France and recommended the creation of a French equivalent to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.France has been faced with a rise in drug violence and crime, not limited to traditional hot spots or big cities.A 2024 Senate report found that “the intensification of trafficking in the rural areas and the moderate-sized cities” had come with particularly brutal violence.Aurelien Breeden More

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      Prison Officials Detail Treatment of Trans Inmates Under Trump Gender Order

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      The federal Bureau of Prisons is banning the use of preferred pronouns, stopping special pat-down procedures and rejecting underwear requests from transgender prisoners.The Bureau of Prisons on Friday laid out strict new guidelines for the treatment of transgender inmates to comply with President Trump’s executive order on gender recognition, including ending special procedures for pat-down searches and barring prisoners from purchasing the underwear of their choice.The guidelines, dated Feb. 21 and obtained by The New York Times, show the extraordinary steps that the federal government will have to take to comply with the president’s edict that there are only two sexes, established at conception, and that men who “self-identify as women” pose a threat to the safety of women.The prison memo was issued on the same day that a new group of transgender women rushed to court to try to stop their transfer from all-female prisons to all-male facilities, saying that the move would place them at an elevated risk of physical and sexual violence. Already, a preliminary injunction issued Feb. 18 had blocked the transfer of three transgender women to male prisons.But the new lawsuit said the bureau informed the trans women not participating in earlier suits that they were to be transferred to male prisons “imminently.”The Bureau of Prison’s two-page memo details the treatment expected of transgender inmates at length. The guidelines require prison staff to refer to inmates by “their legal name or pronouns corresponding to their biological sex.”It said that transgender women would no longer be shielded from pat-down searches by male guards and that they would no longer be permitted to buy bras and other women’s clothing at the commissary. Public funds would no longer be used to purchase items that bind breasts, remove hair or allow trans men to use urinals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hochul May Deploy National Guard as Wildcat Strikes Hit 25 N.Y. Prisons

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      Corrections officers, without their union’s approval, refused to show up for work to protest what they say are hazardous conditions and severe staff shortages.Gov. Kathy Hochul threatened on Tuesday to use the National Guard to ensure the safety of New York’s prisons after wildcat strikes by corrections officers spread to more than half of the state’s 42 penitentiaries.The threat was a response to labor actions that began on Monday with officers assigned to two upstate prisons refusing to come to work to protest staff shortages and other conditions. By Tuesday, strikes had emerged at 25 prisons, state officials said.The officers’ union said it had not authorized the job actions, and Ms. Hochul, calling them “illegal and unlawful,” said she was considering forcing the officers back to work by invoking a state law that prohibits most public employees in New York from going out on strike.“We will not allow these individuals to jeopardize the safety of their colleagues, incarcerated people and the residents of communities surrounding our correctional facilities,” the governor said in a statement.The strikes, the first widespread work stoppage in New York’s prisons since a 16-day walkout by officers in 1979, come as the state correctional system faces close scrutiny stemming from the fatal beating of a 43-year-old inmate by officers in December.Criminal charges are likely to be announced on Thursday against at least some of the officers and other corrections department employees whom state officials have implicated in the killing of the man, Robert Brooks, at Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Prison Boss Elevated by Hochul Was Accused of Rape by 2 Former Inmates

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      The attacks occurred years earlier when Bennie Thorpe worked at a state women’s prison, his accusers said. Now he runs a prison where an inmate was fatally beaten by guards.After guards at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York beat a handcuffed prisoner to death late last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul promised immediate reforms to turn the troubled prison around.One of her first directives was to install a new leader, Bennie Thorpe, who had recently run another correctional facility and had experience with security operations and rehabilitation programs. Mr. Thorpe, she said, had “expertise and a fresh perspective on what must be done.”He also had a record of being accused of rape and sexual assault by inmates at one of his former workplaces, records and interviews show.In lawsuits filed in 2023, two women who had been incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County accused Mr. Thorpe of sexual abuse when he was a captain there.One said he summoned her to an office, groped her breasts and raped her in December 2018.Another said he raped her three times in the spring of 2019 in a room near the prison’s medical unit.Neither of the allegations has been previously reported. Both lawsuits are still pending in the New York State Court of Claims.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I Do Not Want Revenge for My Father’s Death

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      On a warm October night 12 years ago, my father, Yaya Ofer, was murdered by two Palestinian terrorists. They attacked him at home, at night, with axes, landing 41 blows on his body. His killing was planned. My father, who had retired as a colonel in the Israeli Army, had been the central figure in my childhood. As an adult, I loved hiking with him all over this country and meeting people from every background. In one evening all that was gone. The attackers were sentenced to life in prison. Now, as part of the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, one of those men will walk free.I have come to peace with his freedom.Many of the 1,000 prisoners who are being released in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages have the blood of people like my father on their hands, some of it barely dry. Behind every heartwarming video of a hostage embracing family members is a family like mine, being forced to relive our own grief.Knowing that the man who killed my father will walk out of prison stirs complex emotions, but I know it is the right decision to release these prisoners, if that is what it takes to save the hostages who have been held for almost 500 days. I believe nothing could be more sacred than bringing the hostages home — not my grief, which will not end, and not even my father, whose life I cannot restore. Not if we can bring back to life my fellow countrymen who are still held in the tunnels under Gaza.I hope this hostage-prisoner exchange will bring an end to this long and terrible war that has been thrust upon millions of people on both sides who did not choose it. And yet I am terribly worried that when the exchanges are finished, when the troops withdraw, we will discover that Israelis and Palestinians are now farther from peace than at any point in our history.I come from a family of peaceniks. My paternal grandfather, born in Haifa, helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp with the British Army. My maternal grandfather survived the Holocaust in Europe. He emigrated after the war to Israel and pioneered treatment of post-traumatic stress syndrome.After my father’s death I, too, wanted peace, not revenge. So I got involved in the peace-building community, including the Parents Circle-Family Forum — a group of bereaved families, Israelis and Palestinians, who have all lost loved ones, brutally, in this endless conflict. In the friendships I formed, I sought out not just Israelis, but also Palestinians, to understand their loss and mine. It was an antidote to spiraling into a state of depression, fear and hatred. Around the time of my father’s murder, I was helping to organize the annual Jerusalem Season of Culture project, which brings together Jews and Arabs for shared cultural projects including music, art and theater.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More