Locked In with Ian Bick - New York Prison Sergeant Reveals What Really Happens Behind Bars | Randy Allen

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Randy Allen spent over two decades working inside New York’s prison system — 22 years as a correctional officer before being promoted to sergeant. In this interview, Randy reveals what really goes on behind prison walls: the investigations into drugs, weapons, and contraband, the violence between inmates, and the pressure that comes with wearing the badge on the inside. #PrisonStories #CorrectionsOfficer #NewYorkPrison #LawEnforcement #TrueCrimeInterviews #BehindBars #PolicePodcast #criminaljustice Thank you to PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode: Prizepicks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Connect with Randy Allen: https://www.facebook.com/share/1EDHk6bq6A/?mibextid=wwXIfr Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro: Meet Sgt. Randy Allen & His 22 Years in New York Prisons 05:12 – Childhood, Family Values & The Road to Public Service 10:10 – Military Ambitions & Lessons in Discipline 17:41 – Starting in Corrections: First Day, Training & Culture Shock 23:20 – Inside Maximum Security: Inmate Behavior & Survival Dynamics 29:13 – Working Across Multiple Facilities in New York 35:21 – The Reality of Officer Life: Stress, Safety & System Struggles 41:20 – Gangs, Riots & Maintaining Control Behind Bars 52:20 – Becoming a Sergeant: Leadership & Hard Decisions 01:01:00 – Investigations: Drugs, Weapons & Prison Informants 01:14:20 – How Contraband Moves: Smuggling, Busts & Hidden Operations 01:25:00 – Retiring After Two Decades: Mental Toll & Reflections 01:31:10 – The Future of Corrections: Reform, The HALT Bill & Change Needed 01:39:00 – Life After Corrections: Black Ops Security & Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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How would Mack Security inmates treat a new officer like yourself? Officer said, accounts clear. Buf, fuck blew up, man. Inmates are popping out of the queue, jumping off lockers, jumping off their beds. When did you realize there was a difference between convicts and inmates? I had a lot of informants as a sergeant, so I developed a good rapport with some of the inmates. Like, they trusted me to do the right thing. use that to my benefit. What's the most common drug in New York State Prison?

Randy Allen spent over 20 years inside New York's prison systems, not as an inmate, but as a mankeeping order and chaos. From drug busts and hidden weapons to riots and investigations, this is what really happens behind prison walls. Randy, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming out here today. Thanks for having me, Ian. Yeah.

Appreciate it. I know you didn't believe it, but the audience does love the correctional officer stories. Yeah, well, I hope they like correction sergeants as well, because that's what I retired as. Yeah, I don't know if we had a correction sergeant. Actually, I think we've had like a captain that's above a sergeant. I know each different prison. Some prisons are different like at the private facility I was in before I went to like the federal area.

They had like majors and different levels. But then in the feds it's completely different. Correct. In the state department, it's the captain's two levels above the sergeant. Okay. And thanks to your friend who pushed you to come on today. Yeah, he talked to me into the coming on here. He said I should tell some stories and so yeah, here I am.

Does he watch the show regularly? He does. Yeah, he does. And he got you watching it too. He got me watching it. That's what it's all about. The show is grown all because of word of mouth. You definitely have some interesting characters on there. You got some real dudes, though.

I tell you that. It's not hard to tell the difference. I did 28 years in the department. It's not hard to tell a difference between somebody that's real and somebody that's just going smoke up your ass. Have you listened to a story yet on the pod? And you're like, yeah, it didn't happen. It's not true?

A lot of it. A lot of it I've listened to. And I'm like, nah, that's exaggerated. Yeah. You know, but I guess this is all for entertainment purposes, though, right? I think what I think it happens is there'll be some people, because I can tell, like, when someone's, like, exaggerating a little bit and it, because I've heard the story before from someone else.

And I think that's what happens. I think, like, they watch their, they're an avid listener of the show. They come. They're excited to share their story, and they might gear it towards another story they had as if it was their own because they want the audience's reaction. Oh. So I feel like sometimes that happens. But like you said, you can always really tell who's a real one and who's a genuine one.

I'm not a very good storyteller, so mine will be short and a little bit confusing maybe at times. That's what I'm here. I'm not a good storyteller. You'll be fine. Hey, you were just talking with Maddie Ice about sports pretty well. Oh, Jets. Not much to talk about. Yeah, and Maddie Ice lied to you and said he wasn't a Jets fan.

Yeah, well, I'm the only honest jet fan. I can tell you that. He's secretly. I still admit it. He was watching a Jets game here the other day. Or, yeah, I think two weekends ago. And no doubt upset and pissed off the way they're performing. Yeah, of course.

And the Giants, that game, where they were supposed to win. And then I guess they totally fumbled it at the end. The Giants? Yeah, the Giants. Are you a Giants fan at all? No. Okay. It's divided in this neck of the woods.

It is. Either Jets or Giants. Yeah, down here is Jets or Giants. Yeah. Up where I'm at, it's Buffalo. Yeah, my cousins are from Pennfield, Rochester area. so diehard Buffalo fans. Buffalo, yeah.

They go to the New York game with the Bills. What was it, Bills versus the Giants? Is that the game or Jets? I don't know. On Monday night, they played the Jets. Yeah, that's what it was, that they won't too. Of course they did. Of course they won't.

Yeah. No, I became a, I'd say I'd leading more towards a Buffalo fan. I don't blame you. You know, Josh Allen. Yeah, so it was my girl. She was a closet Buffalo fan. I didn't know it. Well, we were talking with it because I'm like,

you don't like football. right when we got together, she goes, nah, I go, you're a Jets fan then. So we're watching Jets football all the time. She's a Jets fan as far as I thought. But all of the sudden, we were talking to another couple, and she's rattling off all these stats, Buffalo bills, Josh Allen, this guy, that guy. And I'm like, you're a closet buffalo fan. You know, I never really watched football until I went to prison. Oh, really?

That's how I learned how to do sports. I never gambled on sports until I went to prison and watched basketball, football, and got into it and started to learn about it. They're trying to make some money. Yeah, I got to eat. I won a little bit. I lost a little bit, though, too. But it helped pass the time. Gambling, yeah.

In prison, yeah. I would play dice a lot, too. Risky. Four or five, six. Yeah, hey, I got myself in a lot of trouble. Yeah, no one is into it just for push-ups in there. Oh, yeah. Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in the Auburn, New York area. Yep, just a little bit north of Syracuse. What was your childhood like? Childhood was good. I guess you could say normal childhood. You know, we weren't very well off. as far as financially, but we had everything we needed. There was 10 kids, 10 of us.

10? 10 of us. Like same mom and dad? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, same mom and dad, 10 of us. You know, I mean, my dad was born in 1910 and my mom, 1923, so I don't think they knew what protected was.

You know what I mean? When they had us. And I just just think about this the other day, I'm like, they had us within like a 20-year span. Because my oldest sister is like 75. I'm number nine out of ten, and I'm 61, right? My younger brother's 56, so there's 20 years they've had 10 of us. So every couple of years. What'd they do for work?

My dad was in World War II, and he injured his back. So he was on a cop his entire life that I knew him. He was hurt his back, so he just stayed at home and worked on the farm. We had a small farm with some animals, rabbits, chickens, this and that, cheap. And your mom? My mom was a home health aide. You guys very close. growing up, family that big?

Very close growing up, very close to this day. We have our family group chat that we stay in contact. Yeah. That's how cool. We have our disagreements, but we're very tight family. Very tight. My oldest brother, he would have been the oldest brother. He died when he was eight hours old.

So there was really nine of us growing up, and there was only probably four of us at home all at the same time, maybe four or five. So we never all lived together. You know, we were spread out, but within that 20-year period. What were some values your parents instilled in you guys as kids? I was number nine, hard of ten. So I don't think even do I exist. You know what I mean?

Like they were burned out. And I'm not saying this to be comical. I think they were just burned out. So my sisters kind of led the way in that aspect, provided for myself. I had really no rules, no regulations. But I didn't want to be an asshole, you know. My father and I got in some arguments and I was an asshole when I was younger, like every teenager. but I don't want to be an asshole or a bad guy,

so I stayed within the boundaries that I knew I should. But as far as, I guess, just to be honest, be honest, be loyal, you know, be dedicated to your passions. I can take that from them, for sure. When you would see some of the guys that were incarcerated where you worked years later, did you ever kind of compare their childhoods that you would hear about it to yours?

No, no. I was never, I never felt unfortunate. I never felt like that I was ripped off of a good childhood because I was happy was where I was at. Like I said, we weren't wealthy, but we had everything we needed and we had each other. Did you ever wonder what went wrong in their childhoods? And my friends? No, and people that were incarcerated to end up where they were. Oh, yeah.

Okay, so you want to get into that a little bit, yeah. I sympathize with a lot of them. A lot of inmates that are in New York State prisons, and I can only relate to New York State because that's where I worked for 29 years, 28 and a half. Yeah, there was a lot of people that shouldn't be there. Absolutely. And there was a lot of people, a lot of inmates incarcerated that I felt bad for, but I'm not going to demonstrate that.

You know, I'm going to treat every inmate the same. But yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. Did you knew you were going to go into corrections from a young age? No, no. I thought I was going to be a major league baseball player. But, you know, I came from a class C school. We graduated 103, and I was pretty good on the baseball team. But, you know, in New York City, there's a thousand guys like me sitting the bench, not even making the team.

And you're competing against the entire nation, and even beyond. Did you go to college for baseball? No, I went to the military. My recruiter back then, recruiters are going to lie to you. Anybody looking to going to the military? Talk to guys that have been in the military, because that's how you're going to get the real deal. And I didn't know anybody other than my father. that was in World War II.

So when I was being recruited, man, I was bought and sold on everything that recruited was telling me, oh, yeah, you want to go to college, play baseball, you don't have to. He goes, you can come into the military, we have a baseball team. He goes, you know about Army and Navy football? He goes, we got Army and Navy. Like, all right, I can serve my country, play baseball. I go, it's a win-win for me, man. No, no, I went into the military when I was graduated high school.

And I played baseball on a pickup team, and that was the only baseball. I've seen in the military. Did you want to follow your dad's footsteps in the military? No, it wasn't about that. It was just I felt like that's where I belonged, to be honest. Did you think of anything ever other than baseball in high school or was just strictly baseball? That was baseball. Yeah, I didn't think of.

I knew I had the military as a backdrop, you know, whatever reason. If I did go to college and failed at that, which I evidentially would have, I knew I had the military. When you left the military, did you end up going to college? No. No, but I did try out for a semi-pro baseball team. So when I was in high school, I was a pretty good ball player, and then I played for an all-county baseball team. We had an 18-game schedule, I think it was.

And we were a pretty good team, and I only struck out once the entire year. It was lead-off hitter, I played center field. I only struck out once. When I came home for the military, I tried out for a semi-pro baseball team, and during my batting practice, I couldn't hit the fucking ball, man. I struck out every time. I could not hit the ball. Looking back on it now, do you wish you went the baseball route or at least tried to rather than the military?

No. No, I'm happy where I'm at. I'm happy with the career pass I chose and I'm happy with my life and where I'm at. I did the right thing for me and my kids. How long did you serve in the military for? So I was in the military active for three years, and then I was in a ready reserve unit for three more years. And a ready reserve unit they don't have anymore. It would just be a reserve unit. So Ready Reserve back then, I didn't have to go every weekend. I was just like on call. So if I needed to be activated, they would call me.

I'd go into the training, whatever I needed, and then I'd be deployed wherever they needed me. That was my MOS, which was 36 Kilo. It was a tactical operation specialist. Now it's 36 Mike. For all you military guys out there, listen, it's 36 Mike now. They moved it under communications.

So I was only called once during the second three years, and that was it. So that was my military career pretty much. How old were you when you were done with the military, like 24? 24. I went right into corrections because I was home for three years and still on call for the military. So I was moving on, right, getting my life together. I had a son, got married.

And would you ask me? Oh, the age 24. Yeah, it was 24. Why corrections? How did you end up there? So I had a buddy that was three years older than me. And he was in corrections. Shout out to Kenny.

So he was three years older than me, right? Three years older than all of us. And we always hung out with this guy. And he had fucking money. Like he had a brand new Tranzan, T-Bird special. He had a Harley-Davidson. He had everything. Whenever we went out, he would pay for everything.

And he was a prison guard. So I'm like, that doesn't sound bad. I go, what's this job entail? And he talked about it and talked about it. I was like, oh, it's good and bad by the sounds of it. Right? So he got me to go to this, it was a recruiting seminar,

and there was a bunch of prison guards that were recruiting everybody around the Auburn area, trying to recruit them. So I went to this seminar, and I'm sitting there listening to these guys talk about the attractions, about corrections, and one thing stuck out,

and I still remember it to this day, one of the recruiters said, look at, he goes, it's 1988, he goes in the 90s, everybody in New York State will either be a prison guard or an inmate. I was like, well, rather be a prison guard. What was the pay back then? Was it good?

I started out 19,000 a year in the academy. I guess for back then that was decent in the 80s? That was real good. Actually, $19,000 a year when I went in in 1989, it was pretty good. After six months, I went to like 20. Then after year it was like 21. You know, I ended up making considerable amount more than that. But now I think the academy now, once you enter the academy, is like 60 grand.

Do you get your full pay when you start training, or does it like kind of evolve once you complete training? Oh, you get your full pay at that pay scale. You start out at, like I said, 19 grand. After six months, you get a pay raise. What you get through your one year of probation, you get another pay raise, and then it's whatever the contract is at that time.

How different was training back then from what you've probably seen throughout your career? I was in military, so I could have done the corrections standing in my head. It was easy. Training for the academy, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. It was not difficult.

I'll need the mental part of it a little bit because the only thing I had to struggle with was the civil service tests. That was the only thing that worried me. And I got an 85 on it, so I was fine. Do you think it's evolved, the training aspect of it? I think it's got weaker. I think it's got weaker. I mean, you don't even have to do PT now if you have a medical excuse. You know, you had no excuses back in 1989.

You're going to do the PT. And now I think it's just weaker. I can't say for sure I'm not in there. have you sleep up. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can actually get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this football season on prize picks where it's good to be right. I've been loving prize picks lately. It's so simple to play. You just pick more or less on two to six player projections. And if you get your picks right, you can cash in. I can build a lineup in under a minute and it honestly

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training. I did, yeah. Yeah, they talked about the training and that's why I say it too is like it just sounds easier, you know. Do you think that your military career helped you in your corrections career? Yes. 100%. Yes, absolutely. What do you think was the biggest aspect that helped you on the job? I know some like law enforcement officers, cops will say that people that came from corrections

and to it normally have a lot of skills that help them on the job. I think what the military helped me most is being alert, being prepared, you know, being ready for the worst outcome possible and being happy that that's not where it went. But yeah, being alert, being prepared, being disciplined, I think. How long was the training? Four? Four. For corrections?

Eight weeks back then. Is it longer now? Yeah, I believe it's 10 weeks. Oh, they added an extra two. They added extra two. They added more, you know, state regulations. So, yeah. Where did you go after you completed training?

So when I completed my training and corrections, I went to, there was three of us that went to Sing Sing Correction Facility. Right, everybody else went here. Some people went to a camp, some people went to shock camps. amps, some went to minimums, some went to Comstock, me, my best buddy, and another guy went to Sing Sing. And at that time, everybody was talking about how Sing Sing is the worst place there is. You know, there's no place worse than Sing Sing, so of course I'm going to Sing, but it didn't worry me. Of course I was scared. I'm not going to lie to you and say I wasn't. Of course I was.

But once I got there, it was all right. You know, I did OJT. I think we did a week back then of OJT where you're with another senior officer, which isn't as great as it sounds because they send you off on errands a lot. And I can tell you that I was scared a couple times in the military, but the first time I was ever scared as a correctional officer was it Sing Sing. They had the main up on one side, the maximum facility. And down below that, you had Tapan, which was a medium facility. And connecting the two was a long tunnel. Right. And I'm on OJT, and the correction officer that I'm hanging out with says, hey, you mind running down to Japan to such and such and he's got something for me.

You want to go grab that for me? Like, yeah, man, trying to get along, right? So I'm walking down this tunnel, and it's probably 75 yards long and it's coming uphill. And as I'm walking down there, it's empty, and all of a sudden the floodgates open. There has to be 150 convicts walking straight for me. I got no radio.

I got nothing, man. It's just me and 150 inmates walking toward me. I mean, I can tell you today I would do that comfortably, right? It wouldn't be an issue for senior officers, but when you got two days in Sing Sing, and you're dealing with that shit, it was scary. Was that normal protocol for that to happen, or did it escalate? Oh, I think it was, they were coming back from programs or rec run or something.

I don't know why there was that many inmates moving back from Japan, but there was. And I was right in the middle of them. But they didn't attack you or anything. No, they just eyeballed me, eyeball them back, you know, short eyeball contact. You don't want to go above them at second half. But that was it. Yeah, they left me alone. They could have killed me.

I'd have been there for a week for anybody knew it, but they left me alone. What kind of inmates were housed in Sing Sing at that time? A maximum security inmates. And they could graduate to go to Japan. You know, once their levels, they became a lower level. Then they could get moved down to Japan. But where I worked in the main prison was a Max. So they were all Max.

And how would Max security inmates treat a new officer like yourself? The convicts. Yeah. Convicts treat you with respect, man. They're just there to do their time. What I call the inmates. because there's a difference to me. And they'll fuck with you.

You know, they'll try you. You play their games. And you just got to learn the difference. You know, like the old-time convicts are pretty cool. Actually, they just want to do their bid. They don't want no drama. They're just going to do their thing. And that's, they'll leave you alone.

But younger guys just want to play fuck-fuck for the most part. So that's what we had. When did you realize there was a difference between convicts and inmates? So I learned, after I was off OJT still at Sing Sing. I had the commissary bid on days. It wasn't a bid. I was written into the commissary. And Sing Sing, they came down to the commissary and they were held in a holding cell

until their number come up. So the commissary called their number 50, number 76 or whatever, the number correlated with them. And on their bag, they had the numbers written on their bag of what number they were to be called. and so I'm at the commissary and these inmates are in there peppering me you know they're talking shit whatever that's my number that's my number

so what happened was I got lucky because the commissary called number 50 right I don't remember exactly the number she called the number out and this white kid's up here trying to punk me out he's like that's my number for whatever reason he knew who's real number it was

wasn't coming down that day because he wouldn't he wouldn't fuck with that but he's like that's my number that's my number seal let me out of here I'm like that's not your number and how I say I got lucky is when that kid walked in the cell for whatever reason I looked at his bag and his number was 76 so I go that's not your number he goes yeah it is like your number 76 bub he goes oh oh shit the whole fucking thing got the whole cell got quiet holding pen so at that point I had no more problems in the commissary but that was the difference between them fucking with me the difference between a convict is

I had, I was down in the gym working one day, right? And I had a watch on. Games inmates play, man. Don't let anybody tell you they're stupid. They're fucking intelligent beings. I had a watch on, right? These couple of young inmates, punks, right? I wouldn't call them that, but that's what they were.

Come up to me, talk to me about my watch. Is that one of them special watches that's got something on the back of that? I go, I don't know, man, it's just a regular watch. He goes, nah, on the back of it, it's got an insignia or something. He goes, let me see it. Dude, I took my watch off. and I fucking handed it to the inmate. It disappeared, right?

It goes from this hand to this hand to this hand, right? Like, fuck, all right? Lesson learned, right? A convict. One of the old time convicts is where I learned the difference is he told the kid that had that watch. At that point he goes, you give that back to that CO. He's no problem.

He doesn't fuck with us. Give him back the watch. Took the fucking watch, put it back on. That's a difference. Do they teach you in training how to gain respect by inmates or convicts? Or is that something...

How to get respect? Yeah, or is that like you have to acquire on your own? I don't think you can be trained to get respect. Do you Ian? Do you think you can be trained to get respect? No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so either. I think it works the same as, like, if you're an inmate too.

It's not like you can... It's something you have to learn and acquire on your own. Yeah, I agree. I think you just have to learn it. You know, you've got to be yourself, man. If anybody's going to the department, I would say, just be yourself. Don't try to be a cowboy if you're not a cowboy. don't be an asshole because you don't have to be an asshole.

Do your job. Do it the way that you feel it in your heart and you know what's right and wrong. You just do that and you'll be all right. So do you think there needs to be better screening psychologically then for some of these officers that are going on the job that don't have those characteristics? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think there does. There was a time recently where they were letting guys in without even taking a test.

I mean, you didn't have to take a written test. You didn't have to take a psychological test. He was just signed up for it, and they were so desperate for staff that they were plugging them in, right? I mean, I see the billboards all the time about how they're looking for correctional officers. Yeah, they're little staff. I think the screening need to be better, and I'm going to tell you that there was a period of time when I was in, that a lot of the gang members in jail and no disrespect to any of the gangs, but what they were doing is they were having their girls or their homies,

sign up to be a correction officer, going through the academy, and coming in and working in the prisons as correction officers. That's a fact. That was happening. So what we started doing is detecting that through, number one, their tattoos when they're coming through the academy. Everybody had to show the tats and shit that they had and trying to weed them out. Because once you get your girl in there, right, she's bringing shit in. Wait, but don't they have to sign, like on the form saying they don't know on the application.

They don't know anyone incarcerated or... Well, they ask you. And like, they ask you if you know anybody that's incarcerated. doesn't determine whether you get the job or not. You know, when I was in Sing Sing, I worked with an officer and we walked down and he goes, that's my cousin's cell. He was a CEO, right, you know, walking right with me, he goes, yeah, this is my cousin. I want to talk to him when I get a chance. So when you discover these individuals that were kind of undercover, do they get fired and arrested or just fired? If they did something wrong, I mean, you know, at that point, you're not just going

to say, hey, no, yeah, I mean, if they did something wrong, it kind of, they weeded itself out. I don't know what that's like today in corrections. I don't imagine it's an epidemic. It started to be, and it became under control because I started monitoring that better. How long did it take you to realize that you wanted to make this an entire career? I mean, I got into it, so I'm not going to quit, right? So I think I decided when I went to the academy, I was like, this is it, man. I'm not going to quit.

I wanted to quit a couple times during my career. What is it? I was in it. I wasn't going to quit. Were there other people that didn't make it that long that you were in the academy with? Oh, yeah, yeah. We had them drop out because when you're in the academy, you go through a tour. Our tour went through Sing Sing, and people dropped out that day.

And so then once they get through the academy, they get aside to like Green Haven or one of these Max Jails, they drop out. Do you think that Sing Sing lived up to the hype that people were talking about? No, they did not. because I remember, so I had to be on the road, so I was living in a crack shack with 12 other guys, right? Me and my buddy, he hooked us up. We're sleeping on the porch because they didn't have enough rooms for us. And I remember hanging out in that crack house with a couple of guys,

and I'm like, man, if this is the worst prison in New York State, I go, I'll be all right because I kind of like this. You know, I like the energy. I like the atmosphere, not the atmosphere so much. I like the energy. I like the way you had to deal with people and deal with convicts. I like that you had to be alert. I liked that you had to pay attention.

You know, I liked all that shit. So I was like, if Sing Sing's the worst, fuck, I'm going to like this. What were the conditions for the officers, like, say, like the break room, the locker room, bathroom, sleeping area? Because that's like an old prison, right? I don't, Sing Sing, you don't have break rooms for. They don't give you a break room? No, you don't get breaks. No, you don't get a break.

You don't want to, and the bathrooms are the same as the, not the same as the roommate. But they were cleaned by inmates. So, I mean, they were bad, but no, you didn't get break rooms. Get a locker room? You got a locker room up front. They were all right. All this was a room full of lockers. I mean, you didn't have chairs or furniture or nothing like that.

You just put your shit in your locker and grab what you need. We didn't have break rooms. There's no lunch break or anything? No. So you have to eat while you're on your shift? Yeah. Really? Yeah.

You're going 15 minutes early for a pre-shift briefing. And then you do your eight-hour shift or something. 16-hour shift or most recently in corrections, your 24-hour shifts, you don't get a break. What's the- What's the worst thing you could walk into on a shift, like during one of those briefings that they tell you about? You have 400 inmates in the yard right now that aren't leaving. You have 250 image in the gym right now that aren't leaving. The mess-alls are full and the MH are as quiet as a fucking bug and they're not leaving.

and that's, the hair goes right up in the back of your neck. That happened to you before? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did shit like that happen. When was the first time that happened? Probably when I was a sergeant at Franklin Correction Facility. Yeah, it was the first time it happened.

The gym was, the gym was quiet. So I went down there, all the gangs are separated, like the particular spots in the gym. This ain't good, man. So another senior sergeant figured it out, started pulling the leaders out

and talking to him when I want and solving this issue, whatever it was, and got it resolved and it was fine, but that was the first time. Why will things like that happen? Is it just gang-on-gang issues, or is it, do they have a problem with the facility? No, something like that. If the gangs are separating in their own particular, then it's their issue. Right. So drugs, gambling problems.

Maybe you had somebody hit the wrong guy, something like that. How do you feel about gangs in prison? And do you think the prison system can do a better job separating it and assuring it doesn't happen? I can't assure it doesn't happen. I mean, gangs are, you know, gangs or gangs are going to be there. They're in our streets, they're in our schools, they're everywhere. It's going to happen. You can't prevent it.

I don't think they should segregate them. No, I don't agree with that. What can they do a better job of? Man, that's tough because each gang is different to what I've learned. You know, when I became sergeant, I became really involved with, some of the gangs. And I can tell you that they're different in the way that they carry themselves,

the actions, you know, their actions, their responses, who's moving, what? You know, so I could restrict it? I don't, nobody has the answer to that. Where do you go after Sing Sing, and how long were you there for? So Sing Sing for three months,

and then everybody wanted to go to Fishgill because you could swap. Sing Sing, you couldn't swap, and, you know, swapping is, you could swap. You work for me today, cover my shift. You're doing 16 hours. I'll cover your shift tomorrow and do 16 hours.

So you can have the day off and then I can have tomorrow off. That's swapping. But that wasn't allowed to Sing Sing. So everybody was going to Fishgill because they allowed swapping there. So I went to Fishgill, which I regretted because I was stuck at midnight. That jail sucked. It's not that far from here. No.

No, I went by it. It was coming down here. Yeah. They had like a riot or something there a couple weeks ago. A riot. One of those Facebook news things. It was like the police scanners on Facebook group. There was a bunch of officers that got sent to the hospital and everything.

Oh, they had overdoses and things like that. Me, I didn't see what the thing was. I just thought I was a riot. But it was CEOs that went to the hospital and inmates. Yeah, I don't know. I'll have to look at that. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week.

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coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. For a couple days, so I haven't really seen anything like that. Yeah, I just had a guy on the show that was, oh, the one that you watched, the guy with the hat, Anthony. Oh, the Iki hat? Yeah, he was at Fishkill. Anthony, yeah.

He faked a suicider being mental health, uh, inmate to go over there. Good for him. Good for him. Good move. So you go to Fishkill and you're on Midnight's? I go to Fishkill and I'm on Midnights and that sucks, man.

So we're, I mean, if you're an inmate, you're probably like Fishkill. But for an officer on midnight, I wasn't a midnight guy. I didn't enjoy just sitting there. So I jumped ship there after a couple months, went to Camp Beacon, which is a work camp.

They had no fence around Camp Beacon. It was right at the foothills of Fishgill. So I went there. That sucked. And then I, so I put my name on a list. At that point, to get back to Auburn, it took two, three years. So now I'm going to try to leapfrag. So I leapfrog up to a Watertown area, and I was working at Watertown Correctional Facility.

And I got up there, and I was on nights. And, of course, when I get there, they put a freeze on transfers. So I'm the lowest guy in the jail for, like, nine months. So I'm stuck on midnight. shitty dorm, J. Block. You guys are in Watertown, no J. Block. That sucks. So the church sergeant got to like me.

And I'm like, look, I know I'm the lowest guy in the jail. I go, but this sucks. I go, I don't want to do midnights if I don't have to. Like, was anybody else wants my spot? She was, all right. She goes, you want to do the 4 to 12 Chow Hall? So now I'm working 4 a end of 12. Do that for a few weeks.

I'm like, I'm not a complainer, sorry to go, but this is kind of worse. So she was a female. So then she puts me as a second officer because they were double bunked. She put me as a second officer on day shift in the reception dorm. That's one of the best places you could have if you're on a block.

Why is it the best? Because you've got another senior officer that's running the dorm. You're just there, man. Cover the walkway coverage, help him out with whatever he needs. And the reception dorm was, you got inmates that are coming in.

They're there for a minute. Then they're going off to another dorm. So if they're an asshole, you ain't got to deal with them for a few days. Would you see guys trying to smuggle out food when you were on that 4 a.m to 12 shift in the chowel? It's all food, yeah. They smuggle food, sugar packets, yeah, whatever. Whatever they're eating that day.

Were you trying to stop them or you didn't really care? At that point? Yeah. At that point, I really wasn't that familiar with it because I was still kind of new. So it was like, it didn't bother me. I'm like, good for you, man. You know what I mean? It wasn't really no harm to it as far as I could tell.

What do you do on the midnight shift to keep yourself busy to like not fall asleep? walk around just walk get up walk back sit down get up and walk I hated it I wasn't a sleeper so I couldn't sleep on the job yeah was there any ever any action that late at night no not a fish go not a fish go watertown it was so when you're out up when you're like jumping to different places are you moving your family every time or are you making that commute I'm making a commute I'm staying in crack shacks wherever I can lock in I did move my family up to watertown because I'm moving my family up to watertown I figured I'd be there for a while. So I did move them up there, and we lived up there for a while.

And then they had to do layoffs. Remember I said they put a freezing on? So they ended up doing layoffs. And I had the opportunity to either be laid off or go back to Sing Sing. And I didn't want to go back five hours away to just move my family up. So I'm like, I'll take the layoff. So I was laid off for nine months. And then when they called me back, they offered me Sing Sing or Eltona,

which is north of what I. Watertown. So I took Eltona and I went up there. They were a double bunk medium facility. I went up there, started off on midnight. I've been off for nine months, right? But I took a security job with one of the factors in Watertown, the New York State Airbrake. I did security there while I was laid off. I didn't want to sit around and draw unemployment, so I went to work. But I'm off corrections for nine months. And my first night back up there, I get up there and I forget my keys and the fucking door. Don't walk around looking for my keys. They're still in the door. but why were they laying people off

or was there a decline in the inmate population I hired so many people yeah there wasn't a decline yet it wasn't declined yet but they just had hired so many people and nobody was retiring the 87, 85 through like 89 even 90 91 there were so many officers hired

because we had 71 prisons you know at that point so they're hiring so many guys how many prisons are there now? Now it's 42. Oh, they closed that many? Yeah, there was 71 at the peak in 1999, early 2000s. Now there's 42. Do you know what the workforce was back then compared to now?

No, I can't remember. I can't remember what it was. There was 76,000 inmates. I can tell you that back at the peak of it. There was a little over to 76,000. Now there's like 36,000 inmates incarcerated in New York State. So what happened to all those prisons they closed? They're vacant buildings.

They're just vacant buildings and they're empty. I know one, they filmed orange. It's a new black in the one in New York. Oh, did they? They did a show there? Yeah, that's where they filmed. It's based off the Danbury Federal Prison, but they filmed it in New York.

I think it's a town not too far from here. I think a couple hours. Yeah. I don't know what prison is. I'm sure you know what it is. Mid Orange? Maybe that's what, is that a closed one? I think so.

Yeah, we've got to search. Otisville or Mid Orange? Maybe. They have a federal. facility in Otisville, too. Yeah, I'm not sure which one closed. Did you ever think about joining the federal? I did.

I thought about it for a minute when I changed my mind. Why did you decide against it? Well, I was already with New York State, so it was kind of pointless just to jump over to the federal. And once I retired, that's pointless. I don't want to go back in. So you're at this new prison when you got back after nine months. Then where do you go after that? I went to Eltona, and then I went to Cape Vincent, correctional facility.

went down there as an officer, and they were double-bunked, and they were a city jail. So there were Rikers Island inmates. The Rikers Island was in capacity, so they had two state facilities up north. They had Riverview and Cape Vincent, took city inmates, so they were misdemeanors. They weren't felons in there at that time. So I went there. They were double-bunked. In 1991, I believe, they sent them all back down to Rikers Island because they had room

down there for them and they closed us down as a city jail and converted it to the state ran facility well the state ran they converted it to state inmates and then because they uh they did that and then they were doing away with double bunkin i got caught up in that again where they were going to downsize so i transferred out of kate vincent because they don't want to go back to midnight so i transferred out of kate Vincent and went to a drug treatment center, Willard, which is closed now. It was the only drug treatment center in New York State that ran that way. It ran to a shock camp, but it was the only drug treatment center. So I did that for a while as a drill instructor, and that was fun.

You know, you get up in the morning, you do PT with the inmates. The parolees is what they were called. So he did PT with them and ran chow, and it was, that was a good spot, actually. No, I enjoyed that. Double bunk means that there's two inmates in the cell? Yeah. So they got rid of that in New York State? They got rid of the entire dorm being double bunk.

They just kept the backside. So instead of 50 as a normal dorm, they had 90 when they were completely double bunk. And then they went down to like 60 because they had the back row double bunk. So there's still some double bunks, yeah. And then they would have cells that had two people in the cell? No, they had no cells. And most of the median facilities had no cells. They just have dormitory style.

The only cells are, especially housing unit. Do you think cells are more dangerous or less dangerous? No, I'd much rather work on a max jail. much rather working in a max jail. It's safer. For the officer? It's safer for everybody, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of shit that happens there, but you can, you got a place to go, right?

And you got a place to keep them. When dorms go up and they've popped off before, you're outnumbered, man. It's not pretty. When was the time that a dorm popped off for you while you were working? It popped off on an afternoon shift in Cape Vincent when I was there one time. but I knew it was going to and I remember letting the sergeant know hey man

there's issues down here we better get some staff down here because I got a feeling this place is popping so they sent down one more officer but there's two of us is double bunk so the regular officer me and then they sent another guy down there and it was so fucking quiet

we did the count they did a 1040 count at night and I'm like oh man this ain't good did the count as soon as the offer said officer said counts clear fucking blew up man it made you popping out of popping out of their cubes jumping off lockers jumping off their beds

chasing a couple of cats that ran out of there trying to get through the door so the other officers that they called down tried to stop him they went right through him it was not good so what do in a situation like that you pull your pin red dot red dot one red dot two and get some extra help down there

at that point most of the medium facilities at that point mostly When they see extra staff coming, we'll call the situation on its own. And are there consequences for the inmates for something like this? Better involved, yeah. They would go to the special housing unit for disciplinary sanctions. Even if the whole unit has popped off? I mean, the whole unit's, it was, I mean, we had 90 inmates, right?

So we ended up getting that situation. I think we took five out of there. We took the kid that ran, the kid that ran after him, and then the other three that were involved in the altercation once they all got to the day. day room. And then the other ones were mostly standbys, but I mean, you only got 32 000 shoes, so you're going to pick and choose. You're not going to grab a guy that just stood up and ran or just stood up and screamed, you know what I mean? How long were you on the job for before you decided to advance in the ranks? So I took a sergeant's test early on in my career,

and I did well on it, but then I went through a divorce. So I'm going through that, and I'm fighting for custody of my two boys. So I got so much shit going on in my personal life that I could not take the promotion at that point. So I ended up waiting until they were often good. I did 22 years as a CO, and then I did six and a half as a sergeant. Wow, 22 years as a CEO. Yeah. And some of the things, the CO, like, I mean, you don't really have that much power, if you will, as a CEO. You have to get that from the sergeant. So you really are dependent on good sergeants to make things work. And what I learned was that they were few and far between. We did have some, but they were few and far between good sergeants. So I just started swapping, and I picked up

another job. I was coaching varsity baseball at the high school. I did that for 12 years. So at Kate Vincent, I would swap and just take 90 days off and coach baseball. And that's honestly, as a CEO, other than doing my basic job, that's all I get a shit about, man. Just getting time off, coaching the baseball team. I'd still do my job when I was there, but I wouldn't go above and beyond. So at 22 years, why would you even want to advance to that next level

to take on more responsibility? Burned out. Burned out being a CEO. Boring, wanted a job change, and being a sergeant's a completely different job than being an officer. So I wanted that. I wanted the responsibility of it,

and I wanted the action. And I was ready. So, I mean, I'd been ready. I just had to wait. Do you think a lot of office? officers get burned out? Yeah, of course they do. And do you think it affects their job?

Yes. Absolutely. It absolutely affects their job. Now, tell us the process to becoming a sergeant at that 22-year mark. So all you do is take a test, right? And if you do well on the test, then you go on a list. And depending on how well you did on the test is when you will be called. I got a 90 on the sergeant's test.

So I was called within two years. So I took it when I had 20 years and then 22, they called me. I took the promotion to Sullivan Correction Facility, which is a max jail. So, yeah, it took about two years. Really, all you do is take a test and then just sit and wait. Your jail will prep you, though. If you have some good guys at your jail, good sergeants,

they'll prep you on how to run charts. They'll prep you on situational issues and how to handle them and things like that. But it's mostly just gut and instinct. What was the biggest day-to-day difference from being an officer to then becoming a sergeant? So I'm an officer on Thursday. You're transferred.

I'm a sergeant now on Monday in a completely different facility. I'd never been to. And we had issues there. Sullivan was off the hook. We had issues there and they're all looking at me. What do we do? That's the biggest difference is now you're in charge. And now you make the decisions.

You have a lot of officers that you can rely on, though, that have been there, done at that facility. But yeah, it falls on you, man. That's the difference. Do you think you add more respect, As a sergeant because you had so much time in, you weren't like a brand new sergeant. You were someone with experience on the force?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And I didn't treat the guards like shit. You know what I mean? I didn't forget where I came from. I didn't treat them like shit. I didn't have a power trip on them. Like some sergeants,

and a lot of the younger ones, when they make sergeant, they think, you know what I mean? They treat them differently. It's like, well, I'm the sergeant. You know, I told you to do this. I told you to do that. I didn't do that.

I didn't think I did. If somebody out there called me out. on it, but I didn't treat them bad. What do your main tasks and focuses as a sergeant? Making sure you're, so when you're a sergeant, you're assigned particular areas throughout the facility, you're just make sure that those areas are under control, make sure they're operating the way they should operate. If you have any issues in those areas, you are the one that has to handle it.

You have to make sure the cleanliness, operational procedures, inmates standards are being upheld, all of it. I mean, everything. Now, something I noticed from my perspective when I was in prison was whenever the inmates had an issue, we would always ask to speak to the sergeant or the lieutenant. Would that be the case in your situation? Yeah, that'd be the same case, yeah. If they had an issue, they'd ask to speak to a sergeant.

And when was the first time something like that happened? Oh, I don't know. It doesn't take long, especially if you knew a sergeant, they want to chat with you. Yeah, I can't tell you. I don't remember them the first time was for that. How do you kind of stay on that line of, you know, supporting your officers? but also if maybe the inmate has a, you know, realistic claim or cause. It's a very good question, Ian.

That's tough, man. It's tough because you're there. There's no doubt you're there as a sergeant. But that happens a lot more than it should. Yeah, like there's got to be situations where you know the inmates right, but it's also like you got your co-worker right there. So let me tell you the first time. And I'm going to tell you this little story,

but the first time that happened to me where I had to side with the inmate. I'm at Sullivan. I'm a brand new sergeant. I'm at Sullivan and I have the draft area to cover, right? So we're moving. I think it was six to eight inmates. We're moving out of Sullivan that day. They're packing up. They're going to another facility. And any time they go to another facility, they get stripped frisked, right? Go into the holding pen and then they go. So I'm down there and I hear some commotion in one of the strip rooms. So one of the officers, Sarge, Arch, come here. So I hustle down there. I'm like, what's going on? This officer comes up to me and he goes, uh, he won't pick up his t-shirt. I look on the floor. Inmate standing naked against the wall, number one. This t-shirt is on the floor over here, right, behind him. I said, the officer's like, he won't pick up the t-shirt. I'm like, okay.

Now, I already knew this inmate. He's doing 22 years to life. He's jacked the fuck, right? You don't want issues with him number one. Definitely not over some bullshit like this. So I'm like, so write him a ticket. I said, I'll take it with him to his next facility and let them, let them, let's them deal with that. He goes, I want him to pick that t-shirt up. I told him three times to pick

that t-shirt up. I go, all right, come out here and talk with me. I pointed to the other officer that's in a strip room. I go, get him dressed, get his coughs on, put him in a holding pen. I take the officer out there, I go, dude, I could just write him up. I go, I'm not having an issue with this inmate. Write him a ticket if you want to. I go, that's where it's going to end here. So then two days later, I'm on rounds. And this kid's working in the S-H-U bubble down in Sullivan. He's in there. I go, all right, let's see what happens here. So I go in,

sign the buck. He doesn't say a fucking word to me, right? How's your day going? He just looks at me. It must be pretty good if you got, if you're not saying nothing, you have no issues. I walk out the door, he slams that fucking door so loud. He was pissed. So that's the first time I took the side of an inmate, and that's the,

that's the result I got from the officer. But I never looked back. I'm not going to deal with that for a T-shirt. You don't have to pick that up, right? Do you think it's harder to gain respect from an inmate or a convict, or is it harder to gain respect from a fellow correction officer? I'm going to say probably even, man.

Yeah, I think it's about even probably. I don't think one's more difficult. Just be yourself and do your job. If you do your job, inmates are going to respect you, and if you do your job, the officers are going to respect you, the good officers. You know, some of them, some of them are going to be the way they are for the rest of their lives, right? So you've got to bypass all that. And just deal with the guys you know that got you back.

Know what you have their back and they're going to respect you. Now, is the sergeant also responsible for the scheduling and mandating overtime and everything like that? Yeah, well, the chart sergeant is. Chart sergeant is. So there's like six, seven, depending on the size of the jail. There's always more than one sergeant, unless it's not a midnight medium jail. Then there's only one. But yeah, the chart sergeant does all the scheduling.

jammed you up for overtime, sticks an officer, which means if you're short of staffed, you got to call an officer and tell them they're stuck, which that was the worst thing for me about being a sergeant, man. You call on a guy that's got kids at home. He wants to get out of there. He's been there eight hours, burned out. You got to call him and tell them.

So I would always try to do a little humor when I had to do it in the beginning. You know, Officer Ian, I got good news and bad news. I go, what do you want first? He goes, give me the bad news. I go, the bad news is you're stuck. He goes, oh, man, what's the good news? The news is I got no more bad news.

Oh, all right, sorry, all right, I got it. What if they declined, what would happen to them? Declined. Yeah, you can't decline. No, you can't decline. I mean, you go to the infirmary and say you're sick and play heart attack or, you know, you could take that route, but you can't just say, nah, I'm not staying and leave. I would hate a job like that where you kind of can't, like, have a life? Like, if you have plans, what if it's like your wife's birthday or something, you know?

It's tough, man. And people think, you know, that's one of the tough parts about being a CEO is, you know, let's say you're sitting on a dorm somewhere. You're sitting on a 3-11 dorm in a medium jail and you got, you got issues at home, your girlfriend's fucking around, your kids got a baseball game that night. You got all kinds of shit going through your mind and you can do nothing. You can do nothing but sit there with your 60 inmates. You know what I mean? You got nobody to talk to. You don't have access to an outside line, unless an emergency.

So you just got to sit there and that's eating away at you, eating away at your gut. This is a Bose moment. You've been there. Small talks going nowhere, but then the Bose speaker kicks in. Music you can feel fills the room, and no more chat with Danny from accounts. Your life deserves music.

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Okay, so sergeants are open to that as well. Yeah. Yeah, Lieutenant would call us and so you're stuck. Now, something I was curious about, how did commissary evolve from the 80s to, you know, by the time you retired? I don't think it involved very much at all. It was the same? You could only have $50 sneakers when I went in. You could only have $50 sneakers when I left.

What about like types items? Like, I don't know, types of chips. I mean, maybe it was different state. I don't know. I don't know about any of that. I don't know. I didn't really watch their commissary purchases and things like that. I don't know.

I just know the sneaker thing because I mentioned that to an inmate. I mean, he's wearing $160 fucking sneakers right down in the visit room. Like, hey, pretty good sneakers for $50 here, well. I didn't care. It didn't have air pockets and things like that. What did you like more being an officer or a sergeant? Sergeant, man. I loved being a sergeant.

Loved it. What was it about being a sergeant? You had more say. You know, you had more freedom to move around the jail. As an officer, you're stuck in the spot. You got the commissary, you're there. You got a block, you're there. As a sergeant, you can roam every.

You can go wherever you want to go, and you're in charge. And I liked that, you know, at the risk of sounding egotistical, which I'm not. I'd like to being in charge of it because then anything that happened, I own it. You know what I mean? Instead of shit going south and you got no say in it. So I like that aspect of it. And it was just more freedom, more freedom. It's busier, a lot more busier.

But I'd like that. Did you ever make a call as a sergeant that maybe you look back on years later? and we're like, I wish I did something differently in that moment? Yeah, of course, of course. What were those moments like for you? Man, I was a sergeant for six and a half years

at six different facilities. I did just so much shit. You're asking me for particular moments. It's hard for me to remember that. I've been out seven years. But let me try to, let me try to think of some, okay, so I had an inmate that was going home.

He was going home soon. And something happened with his pitchers. Somebody fucked with his pictures, right? So I started the investigation. I looked into it, and my investigation led me to this particular inmate. You know, I interviewed several guys. And the investigation led me to this particular inmate. So I call him a Orange office.

I'm interviewing him, and I have a feeling that maybe he did it, and maybe he didn't do it. But it was more maybe he did it. I think he did it. I thought he did it. So I wrote him up, put him in the S-HU, And then it was like a couple weeks after that. I was like, man, did I get that right?

You know what I mean? I don't want to lock a guy up for the wrong reason and he didn't deserve it. That one still sticks with me today. Did I get that one right? So that one stands out. What was an inmate's story that you'll kind of never forget about? As far as... Circumstances or why he was there or just who he was as a person.

Like, why he was there? Well, I remember an inmate was, he was there and I'm like, I'm like, dude, why are you here? He was like five foot six white kid that's as calm as anybody, right? Just going about his shit, very respectful. I go, why are you here? I mean, I can find out. You don't have to tell me. He goes, I'm here because I was on pain pills.

He goes, I was a construction worker. He goes, I hurt my back. He goes, I got a family. I had to work. He goes, I got hurt. And he was back in the opioid when you can get him anywhere. He goes, I got hurt. I got on opioids.

He goes, and one pain pill led to two, led to 12, led to 15 a day. He goes. I just got caught up with it. He goes, so that's why I'm here. Now, when you were saying investigations as a sergeant, are you doing investigations off the bat, or is that a different level of being a sergeant? No, I was doing it off the bat.

Not at first. The administration doesn't let brand new sergeants handle investigations unless it's like a claim, package room claim or something like that, simple. But no, as far as narcotics, weapons, gang-related activities, no, they're going to call them more seasoned sergeant, if you will. How does an investigation work from the time it hits your desk? Well, okay, so I didn't do much as a sergeant until I got to Franklin. I went from Sullivan.

I went to Sullivan to Orleans, medium jail. And then I went to Cuga, medium jail. And those two jails were so quiet. Nothing happened. And I remember going to the captain. I'm the captain. I go, you've got to give me some shit to do, man. I go, I'm so bored here.

And my buddy of mine was telling me, look, he goes, you got to go to Franklin, correctional facility. He goes, that place is off the hook. He goes, but the sergeants and the officers run that jail.

He goes, you'll like it there. It fits your style. I went to Franklin and holy shit, man, that place, that place is fucking crazy. 1,800 inmates

they call it the mini-max. But another thing, my buddy told me when he was talking to go in there, he goes, you're going to go up there and you're going to have the best sergeants

in New York State to work with. And he wasn't fucking lying. These guys up there were so well-seasoned as sergeants. that they could handle any situation that come up in the facility. So I'm going to say that I learned from the best, the best sergeants at Franklin Correction Facility.

They taught me how to investigate, how to deal with problems, how to handle every situation that arose. And I was there about a, I was there three years, but after about a year, it was like I was not fearful of any incident happening that I couldn't handle. What were the best things you think they taught you? How to handle situations, how to handle them calmly. how to handle them efficiently, you know, what connections to make in the inmate population.

That's important. And I'll get into some stories where I'll express the importance of that. But they just taught me how to be ready for anything, I guess, right? And how to do the paperwork because on claims and shit like that, you want to do them correctly. You want to make sure the inmates getting justice. But at the end of the day, there's really no justice for the inmate on most of those. because they're fucking gone, you know, and I'll tell you when I was in Sullivan,

I did interview with David Berkowitz, the son of Sam, the serial killer. Do you know who he is? Yeah, of course. So he had a claim, right? And so I was handed that investigation as a new sergeant. So I went up and I interviewed him. He goes, I'm missing a book.

He goes, I ordered this book, as a religious book. He goes, it's showing that it came through the package room to the facility a week ago. He goes, some final claim just to see where my book is. it's like all right I'm looking into it so I go to the package room

fucking officer sitting there reading that fucking book right so I'm like oh man so I got it I took it up to him I go look

I'm gonna be honest with you the inmate was reading that or the officer was reading your book they go if you want to do if you want to proceed this further

with a grievance I could have every right to do that Mr. Berkowitz but that's what happened that's why you didn't have it this whole week he was I'm good I'm good

he's jolly old guy at this point. I'm good, I'm good. As long as I got it now, I'm good. Thank you, Sergeant. All right. You know, shit like that. So. Do you think most sergeants would have even told him that another officer? No. I feel like they would have just said, oh, it was stuck in the mail. It got a lot misplaced and here you go. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean about creative paperwork as far as that goes, right? I didn't want to put in the paperwork that. I didn't want to throw the officer under the bus on that. So that's why I spoke to him and I wrote the claim up, I go, is this okay with you? And he's like, yeah, it's good. Is he still alive? I got to sign off. Yeah. Yeah.

He's still alive. They closed Sullivan. I don't know where he's at now, but. They passed that law on him, the son of Sam law. Well, he went from the son of Sam to the son of hope. Oh, he renamed himself? Yeah, he's the son of hope now. Okay, because he tried to publish, like, that book and make the money, so New York passed the law.

Yeah. Yeah, that's how I first found out about that whole case. You can't benefit off your crimes. Was he the only, like, famous one you were dealing with, or? No, I dealt with, so I've interviewed a couple of serial killers. He's the biggest well-known. I'm not going to name the other one because he was a Gambino. He was with the Gambino crime family,

and he was a hitman for them. I'm not going to say his name. He's still alive. I interviewed him. I never really interviewed Arthur Shawcross, but familiar with Arthur Shawcross. He dated his niece. And there was some other famous inmates.

I don't think anybody that's real famous. Not like David Berkowitz. In person, what are they like? Are they just normal people? Like the way they interact? The guy from the Gambino crime family, No, he was legit, man. He escaped one time.

And so now he's at Sullivan, or he wasn't Sullivan when I was there. He was legit, man. When I talk about convicts, real convicts, yeah, he's one of them. You know, he didn't say word to you. What happens in the other prisons when inmates from a different prison escape? Like, you were there when the escape at Dan Amora happened? I just retired. Okay.

Were there any other? No, I just transferred from Franklin. I just transferred out of there. Yeah, a month before that escape happened. So you were at that facility where they, the escape was? I was at Franklin where they called out of a lot of the officers. So I would have been on that search had I still been there.

But no, I'd transferred out. And does the whole state get locked down? For a minute. Yeah, for a minute. They lock them down. They lock everything down. But, I mean, they don't keep them locked down because you've got an escape from way up north in Danamara.

Did you watch that series at all? Yes. What do you think of it from your perspective? The one that the actor did is Ben, the last one that come out that was on showtime that's good I didn't see that one I saw the Netflix one was that well maybe it was on Netflix

I wish you could remember the actor's name but that one was that one's money yeah that's on so you think it was totally possible of everything that happened like that escape yeah oh fuck yeah it's kind of crazy like how they just from the meat to everything

that is crazy but I can tell you that happened. I can see everything that happened for fact. They're on the point with that. Did they put new rules in place after that happened? Yes. Yes. A lot of the policies changed in the Department of Corrections.

Can inmates still cook their own meat? Some jails. Some jails they can, some they can't. But a lot of the policies affected the officers more than the inmates, to be honest with it, because the officers just took in the jails. All their cooking utensils and shit got taken away. All this got taken away. We had, actually, I shouldn't say more policies.

We just reinforced a lot of the ones that weren't as reinforced as they should have been. But, yeah, they changed some policies. Are there a lot of officers, like, or even employees that kind of are corrupt like that woman was from the shop? Not a lot, no. Of course we have our corruption. Of course we do. Everybody does, but not a lot. Would you be on those investigative teams, or,

was at an outside? I've done a couple employee investigations, but mostly that would be on the outside. Like, I could turn, like, if I knew an mate was not good, or an officer was not good, I could turn that over to an outside agency or an OSI investigator that can operate outside. But I, like, I caught an officer with a cell phone in a jail.

I'm not going to name which one. I took his job from him because he was, he was bringing in pictures and he was letting the inmate use the cell phone. I'm not going to allow that. I know about it now, so. Oh, he was letting the inmate use the phone. Yeah, he was bringing his phone and let him meet you. So I got him fired.

Is it hard for an officer to get a cell phone in? An officer, no. It's not like you guys don't have a good screening system. It's not hard for an officer to get cell phone in. It's really not hard for an inmate to get a cell phone in. in. Yeah. Did you start to encounter like drones and stuff towards the end of you? I did not. I did not have any issues with drones. It didn't really start to take off yet. They're out there, but I had no issues with them. As far as I never seen them. We did have drugs in the yard at one of the jails, but I assume they probably were dropped from a drone, but I can't confirm it.

What's the most common drug in New York State prisons from your experience? Synthetic marijuana, one was K2. That was the most common drug. When did that first? Suboxin was big, but now they give it to a lot. them. When did K2 first start to hit the yard for you? Probably maybe sergeant in 2012, probably around, I'd say 2012, 2013 maybe, started becoming an epidemic. And was it coming through the mail, like getting sprayed on it? It could come through the mail, come through legal mail, come through packages, visits, staff, probably.

How did you guys first become aware of it? So I became aware of it because when I was in a particular jail, the debt of security, we had a problem with K2, right? Inmates were flipping out on it because that shit's no good, man. It makes them crazy. They do shit they wouldn't normally do. They become extremely violent. Like we've had inmates run around, run out of the dorm naked across the compound to other dorms. We had inmates stand up and scream, fuck me, Jesus, you know, and shit like that.

Like they're out of their minds, right? So we had that happen I'm going to say it I'll say Kate Vincent we had that happen at Kay Vincent and the Depth Security came to me and he says look and he goes I want to know where this shit's coming from I want to know who's bringing it in

and I want to stop Well little did he know what he was getting into because I looked into it I went down a fucking rabbit hole And every time you go down a rabbit hole You find another one you kick over a stone You find another one so The rest of my career as a sergeant

That's what I was doing I was chasing drugs, weapons gangs, shit like that. But when he asked me to investigate into it, I did. And I found the guy that was getting it in. I wasn't the only one because I kicked over another stone. There was more inmates. But he was bringing it in through his visit.

His female visitor was bringing that in. Got that stop, got that flow stopped. And then, of course, you know, then you got other guys doing it too. Is there any way to fully lock down a prison from drugs, contraband, anything? Yeah. Yeah, there is. Listen, you can lock down a facility where the only way they can get drugs is their staff.

You can do that tomorrow. But they won't do it that way. They won't do it. And I'm going to tell you, I've investigated drugs for six years and I got a lot of drug busts. And I can tell you that the state of New York, the higher Eskulan, and some of them even inside a facility, want some drugs inside the prison. What's the benefit of that? Keep the image calm. Keep the image satisfied, you know, which they're not wrong.

wrong, you know, so they want some flow to come in there because they could stop it tomorrow. Why don't they just let him start buying marijuana on the commissary? It's legal in New York. I may support that. I'm not against that. Marijuana is so much better than alcohol, in my opinion. I have always been an advocate for legalizing marijuana. I never believe that the guy should be doing that much time for marijuana. It's ridiculous. I didn't chase that a lot. I'll be honest with you. I didn't chase that a lot in the jail. I mean, I would rather than be on marijuana than anything else than any other substance they weren't allowed to have. Would you catch guys being in hooch? Oh, yeah.

Did you see, like, the process of how they made it? No, I never seen the process, but I know it stunk. I've caught. I mean, I've taken out garbage bags full of hooch and shit, yeah. Where would they hide the bags? When I was in prison, they'd hide them in the brick walls, like in the bathroom. Yeah, they'd hide him behind the dryer in the laundry rooms. They'd hide them in there a lot.

They'd hide them under the trash can. You know, they put the bag of hooch in the trash can, then put another bag over and garbage on top. Some inmates would just hide it in their locker. You said to you investigate weapons, what was the most common weapon you would come across? A little shank, you know, just a metal wire, whatever length, put a handle on it, tape handle, or whatever.

That's the most common. Razzie blades, scalples actually became big before I got out of there, but they're easy to get in. I caught some scalples coming into the jail through the package room. Like getting shipped in? Yeah, getting shipped in through a package, yeah, from somebody on the street. They were allowed to get packages from random people? Yes.

Still to the state? No, I think they've changed that recently. I think it's only from a distributor, but the distributor can be anybody. And the only way you come off of that distributor list today is if you get caught sending in contraband. So you can be a distributor. Anybody can, right here, a distributor. Until you get caught sending a contraband. And now you're not, but I can just change your name and location.

So how did you catch the scalples? So this particular scalpel was at the Cape, and I had some good informants at Cape Vincent. I developed a whole network of snitches. And one of my reliable ones came to me, and he says, look, he goes, so-and-so is getting scalples in. He's getting him in a package probably this week, and it's going to be in the binder of a book.

Because I don't know what the book is, he goes, but they're going to be in the binder of a book. All right. So I watched where, sure enough, that package came in. So I got an officer with the camera taking pictures of the process. And I had the package room officer go through it. He's ripping that book apart. And he's like, man, they're not here.

They're not here. They had them fuckers very good. They were in there. He finally rips it off. He goes, oh, what's this? There's three scalples in there. So it was right where the guy said they were. Are there a lot of informants in prison?

I had a lot of informants. The way I, as a sergeant, so I developed a good report. poor with some of the inmates, like they trusted me to do the right thing, right? And that's, so I used that to my benefit because they knew I'd do the right thing. And a lot of inmates in jail don't want drugs in jail. It's fucking dangerous for them. So I had a good network. We had 14 housing units and I would make sure that I had three inmates, three informants on every housing unit. I would make sure I had informants in the rec areas. I would make sure I had informants in commissaries. I would make sure I had informants in all the program buildings. I had

informants everywhere, even the administration lobby, because they'd go up there to clean. I had informants everywhere, and if I only had one on a dorm, I would start shuffling and moving things around. And how do these informants benefit? What do they get out of this? Safety. Safety of their jail? Really?

I mean, that's about it. I mean, I think a lot of them, and I'm not so naive to think that the gangs didn't use me to take out their rivals, if you will. You know, maybe a Crip would rat out a blood. you know to dime him out which I I thought why would I care I'm getting the drugs I don't care who they are I'm gonna get everybody's right so I treat everybody the same one after everything I listen some of the inmates like I'm gonna go back a little bit because OMH in the Department of Corrections the Office of Mental Health is so fucked up and your

boy there from New York used it to his advantage which a lot of them do and God bless him I would zoo. But so part of the new restrictions on OMH came down where is like say you were an inmate in Rikers Island we were 17, 18 years old. And this is a true story. I had this in this inmate come in to Kate Vincent. He was in Rikers Island when he was 17 and 18 years old and he tried to kill himself when he was 18 years old. He since then, he didn't kill himself. He got out of jail, went home, opened a business, had three kids, married wife, got locked back up for doing a skid bid, like one to three for drugs or some shit, right? And the administration wanted to put him into suicide watch because he's 35 now,

because all the time when he was 18, he tried to kill himself at Rikers Island. New OMH standards were that if you ever tried to kill yourself, no matter when you were reincarcerated, you were to be going on special watch until you could talk to an OMH counselor. So this happened a few times, and it's how I got really good informants, is they would come to me and they're like, I'm not suicidal, blah, blah,

tell me the story. And the lieutenants, I had a good rapport with them. Even if the nurse said, this guy's got to go on a special watch, they would still call me, hey, interview this guy, let me know what you think.

I'm like, this guy doesn't need to go on special watch. He doesn't need to. Just put him in a dorm, let him do this bid and get him out of here. That guy would become a good informant for me because they did that for him. Were you ever surprised by who would become an informant?

Yeah, sometimes. Like the guys you would never expect to be informants become informants. Yeah. Yeah, I surprised a few times. But I, and I did turn informants down. Like I wouldn't let them work for me for more than six months because I didn't want him to get caught. And out of all the informants I had, which is probably over 100, I never had, I had one hit. I had one hit.

One was found out. So I wouldn't keep them for over six months. I would tell them, stop writing me, stop coming to me. I don't want to hear anything else you have to say, go do your bid. I'm done with you. We're done. So, because I don't want them to get hit. But yeah, some would come to me, like, I was very surprised.

Very surprised by a few. Would you ever encounter correctional officers snitching on the informants to the, to the, like, the gang leaders or anything like that? It would happen. So funny you say that, man. Nobody would believe that. I told the deputy security, I go, listen, officer so-and-so is out in the yard, telling the inmates that so-and-so is my snitch.

I always see that in federal prison all the time. Yeah, officers. Mm-hmm. Yeah, tautin out my rats. Counselors would do that, eight case managers. Yeah, I couldn't fucking believe it. And there's no repercussions for them at all? No, there wasn't in these cases.

So you kind of have to operate with the assumption that you can only really trust yourself? Yes, absolutely. I had a few good officers. I had a couple of good sergeants with me that I could trust. But yeah, I kept that circle very small. That's how I got the nickname Black Ops. That's what they called you? Yeah, that was my nickname, Black Ops.

Because I would do these investigations, nobody fucking know about it. Next thing I know, next thing they know, I got a guy hooked up in S-H-U because he was trying to smuggle in 30, 40 grams in K-2. Like, how did you know this? We didn't even know you're working on it. So I got labeled Black Ops. That's how I got the name. How many investigations are you handling at a time?

And how long does the average one take to close? It depends on the investigation. Like some of them are real easy. I can get them done in 10 minutes, find out what it is. some of them take a few weeks, you know, it really depends on the investigation, depends on how good my informants are, because the bigger the investigation,

the harder it is to get good information on that. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying to you? Yeah. So some of them took a while. What do you think about the trailers in New York State? I don't want to get off the investigation thing yet.

I want to stay on some of these stories. No, no, I know, but that probably ties into the trailers, right? Did you ever have to do a... I never had to deal with the trailers. trailers. Oh, an investigation. But if you want my personal opinion, I think they should be more of them. Honestly, I think they should expand that.

I would have thought that was a good way to smuggle stuff in. Well, they get stripped out when they come in. But, I mean, that would be a good way. But the visitors are checked when they go into those trailers, and the inmate is checked thoroughly when he comes out of them. I don't think that would be, I don't think they would risk that because, you know, they obviously want them trailers, right? And if you do that one time, you're done.

You're done for your bid. Yeah. So I don't think that was an avenue they were using. Maybe they were. I never had to deal with it because I didn't, I wasn't at a place that had trailers or I just didn't have to deal with the trailers. What was the biggest investigation you worked? Oh, there was several big ones. I'm going to tell you about the biggest one, because I think it's still either the number one biggest drug bust in New York State Corrections or it's at least in the top two or three.

So I got called down to S. chew and I had an inmate down on the SACU and he wanted to talk to me which happened every day two three times a day inmates wanted to talk to me so I went down there I pulled this kid out talk to him he's like look at he goes I don't know what's going on he goes but I know there's an inmate on such and such a dorm that has such and such a program that's getting a package and in that package is supposed to be some drugs I don't even know what the drug is I go what else can you tell me he goes he's a white guy he's been on this dorm for two months he's been in this program for the same amount of time.

He goes, that's all I can tell you. He goes, but it's what I got. All right. So I went back to that dorm you mentioned. I looked up all the inmates that had been there between one and three months. Narrowed it down. First I went to the white guys. Narrated it down to that.

Then narrowed down to one to three months. And I narrowed down that to the time they were in a program. And it got me to an inmate that was named. I'm not going to name them. It got me to this particular inmate. So I'm like, all right. I'm going to go to the package room because he told me he's going to get it in a package. So I'm looking up, there's the inmate's name in a package ready to be distributed to him.

So I'm looking. I'm like, that's got to be the fucking guy. I asked the package room, I go, officer, I go, did you call this dorm yet to come down and get their packages? Yeah, they're on their way. I go, all right. So that inmate showed up for that package. And I took him aside. I go, look at it.

I go, I want to take you down and I want to talk to you from that. I'm going to put you in the SHU for a 72 an hour investigation. I don't think I had that anymore because the Holt bill, which we can get into. So I'm going to lock you up for 72 hours while I investigate something that may or may not pertain to you. And as soon as I can relieve you of that, I will. So I took him down, I interviewed him. He wasn't giving me much information. He was a pretty solid mule for the guy that was actually getting him in.

So then I went back up to the package. I opened up the package, and there was a case of a carton of Newport cigarettes. I opened the first one It's packed with K2 I'm like holy fuck I open the next one Packed with K2 All of them were packed with K2

It ended up being 262 grams of synthetic marijuana So I was like all right So I ended I kept investigating And I was with the OSI investigation team That I got a hold of my favorite investigator I said look at this is what I got

She goes all right Keep looking into it she goes Try to find out who the guy on the street is that sent that in because it was under a false name and address, of course. So I fucking found out. I found out who the guy on the street was. So then looked into his phone contacts,

so then I started tapping in whatever phone calls came from that number that that guy in the street had. And it linked me to this particular inmate. So I called them an informant from that dorm, one of the reliable, another reliable informant, I said, yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy you're looking for. So I said, all right.

So I told my OSI guy, girl, who on the street was, they went and picked them up. He gave up everything. He said it took him 10 hours to pack them fucking cigarettes. He worked on it for 10 hours. They were the same weight as a pack of cigarettes. It was very good job. Very good job.

So then I started tapping into the guy that I knew God, that solicited him to the jail. I listened to his phone calls, and he couldn't fucking believe he got caught. He's like, this network of snitches he got around here is fucking crazy. But these code words like horse and shit like that. The horse didn't come in, you know? shit like that. So that was a good one. That took a while. That took a long time. But the kid on the street ended up getting a bid and the guy that was locked up ended up getting more time added.

How do you guys decide what to send for like further charges for an arrest? That's up to the district attorney. And do you guys refer every drug bus? Do you? No. No, not every drug bust. So you guys have some discretion of what you're going to kick up there? Yeah, usually the quantity. Usually the quantity of. If it's marijuana, you don't. K2 is so dangerous. I didn't want that in my jail. Suboxin was a contraband that I didn't really know the effects it would have on people. I know it was similar to heroin. It brings people off of heroin. I didn't want that in my jail. I didn't want heroin. I don't want coke, crack, none of that shit.

So I chased all that. What do you think was the wildest thing you've heard on a phone call from the prison? Phone sex between two men? That's a click. You don't need to listen. to that. Just the way they talk to their women, man, some of the inmates that are trying to get this stuff in, you know, they paid, like, they'd talk to the people on the street that are bringing it in, and all they, a lot of times they would just hire girls from the street. They make $200 a day to drive up from New York to smuggle shit in.

So a lot of the conversations were that, the way they're talking to them. But they always used code words. Like, they used vehicles a lot. Cadillac, Chevy means something, Cadillac meant something. And they use a lot of code words like that. Candy. Why don't they just get on a cell phone or something to do that? They don't want, well, they're not supposed to have cell phones in prison.

They're not supposed to be smuggled stuff in on the wall phone, though, either, you know. I mean, if they had cell phones, they probably were. I never, I never found a cell phone. Really? In jail? Never? They're all over the feds. I had rumored that every jail was at.

Oh, they got a cell phone somewhere here. I never found one. I was never at a facility when they found one. Interesting. But did they have them? I'm sure they did. This episode is brought to you by Subaru. Go further in a long-range Subaru hybrid, with up to 581 miles per tank in the forester hybrid.

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This episode is brought to you by Netflix. The Four Seasons is back for season two, starring Tina Faye, Will Forte, Coleman Domingo, Marco Calvani, Carrie Kenny Silver, and Erica Henningson. After a difficult year, your favorite group of friends continues their tradition of vacationing together now with a baby in tow. From the Jersey Shore to upstate New York and Italy, their getaways are sure to take unexpected turns where comedy ensues. Watch the Four Seasons May 28th, only on Netflix. Sure they did. Probably more of an issue now. Probably more of an issue now.

What was your favorite investigation you worked? Probably that one. Probably that one. The 262 grams of K2 is my favorite because it was so detailed. Well, the scalpel one too. I handed that over. I got the guy that sent that in, too, on the street. They didn't do anything with him.

They let him off the hook for whatever reason. Maybe he gave somebody up. I had another investigation where, like, I was told this hub has a particular inmate. that is distributed in all the synthetic marijuana. Like, he's got this guy, this guy, this guy, and then they get into the jails or whatever. The main guy, that was a fun investigation.

I found him. I just so many fun investigations, man. Like some of the ones that are inside the jail, I had informants that would tell me whoever was bringing shit in. Like, I busted somebody almost every weekend, bringing drugs into the facility. This one guy, crazy bastard. Like, I would give the inmates a lot of chances, too.

Like, if I knew you're bringing drugs in, if you're trying to solicit drugs into the jail, a lot of times I would tell you, hey, I know what you're doing, I know you're trying to get shit into my jail. I said, stop. I go, if you stop, we don't have an issue. I go, but if you continue to solicit

and bring that shit in here, I'm going to get you. Some of them took heed to that advice. Some of them didn't. So it's one particular guy, I'm like, look, I told him that. I'm like, I know you're trying to get shit in this weekend. I go, don't do it. I go, let somebody else do it. I go, don't do it, because I will get you.

He did. it. So I told the officer up front, I go, listen, when such and such gets an inmate or gets a visit in, I go, let me know when they get here. Just key your radio, say 49. I go, I'll know know what that means. Got to call 49. So I call them up. I go, who's here to see him? He goes, this is a girlfriend and a baby. I go, who else? He goes, some tall white kid. Okay. So I come up. Now, whenever they bring drugs into the jail, you got to let them introduce it through the sally port. You can't get them in the lobby. They haven't introduced it into the facility. So he had no charges on him.

So you have to let him get into the Sally port. And that way they've introduced the drugs into the facility. So I had to wait until he got in there and time it just right. So I would come up as he's passing through because if you miss him, then he's in. So I did. I got him. I want to talk to you. So I took him to the office up front.

I'm like, look at man. And I did this to all of them. I go, look at it. I know you have drugs on you. I don't know how much and I don't know where you have it concealed. this particular guy sitting there, I go, I know you have drugs, I don't know where you hold in it though.

He goes, hands me a bag of fucking weed. I'm like, you gotta be kidding, man. I go, I know that's not all you got though. He goes, there's a lot of fucking hand. You got to be kidding me. So I took him, confiscated him, right?

And I'm like, listen, I go, how did you get them in through the lobby? He goes, I just held a fist the entire time. He goes, they were right in my hand the entire time. Nice. Good for you. He got three years. Three, actually.

years on the sentence? No, he was a civilian. He was coming from the outside. Okay. He got three years. And well, it's fucking slick, man. Would they go to that same prison or they go to a different prison? No, they wouldn't send him there. No, he went to El Maira. I heard that's a pretty decent spot. El Maira? Yeah. I don't think you'd want to be there, Ian. Oh, it's bad? That's a bad place. I guess I've heard mixed things, though. That's a bad place. And then I had, you know, I bought a lot of women too. Like this one could have gotten away with this female she was hired to bring it up paid 200 bucks

the bloods were sending the white kid down to get it off the dance floor in the visit room so he's down there i see him down there to visit i see this chick walk in here i'm like oh man so i go up pull the kid out take him into the strip room to know the officers contain him there i told her i go listen come with me now anytime it's a female you got to have a female officer that does the strip them right you can't go into a bathroom with a female visit her if you're a male. So I'm walking her up front and I'm like, I have no females here today. Shit.

So I'm just chatting with it. I'm going, listen. I go, I know you have K2 on you. I go, where is it? She goes, it's in my vagina. I go, okay. I go, listen, this is what I'm going to do for you. I go in the bathroom and pull it out.

I go and wrap it in a paper towel and bring it out to me. I go and if you do that, it'll go a lot better for you. I want to report this to the state police. She goes, okay. She does it. Like I thought she would go in there and just flush it. She does it. She pulls it out and brings it back out to me.

She should have flushed it. I'm like, why didn't you? I'm thinking to my head. I'm like, why didn't you flush that? And will she get a rest her right on the spot or she goes home and you just get her information? No, she gets arrested right there. Okay. So you have to wait for the state police.

I call the state police and, yeah, have her contained there, never stay there. Yeah. What an idiot. I'm like, man, she fucked up. So there's nothing you could have done enough if she flushed it? No, I couldn't have done nothing. I didn't see it. I didn't see the drug.

I knew she had it, but how am I going to prove it, right? It's not what you know. It's what you can prove. So, yeah, that was a funny one. I had another older lady that come up, and I knew this kid was going to get her drugs and make her bring him up. And she comes up and she's, like, chatting with me. I pull her in the office.

I'm like, I know you have drugs on you, and I know you're bringing it to inmate so-and-so. I said, I just don't know how much you have, and I don't know how much they're paying you. She goes, ah, she says, what does these bastards get me into? She started pulling drugs out. I don't even think I arrested that lady. She was older.

I felt bad for her, to be honest with you, man. I think I just, I think I told the police, you know, maybe she just needs an appearance ticket, you know, and then she can write a check and whatever, but there's some of them. Like this one, I knew this one kid was having his grandmother bring Suboxone in all the time. Like, man, I don't want to hook his fucking grandmother, but I can't let her bring in Syvaxon either. So I let him have his visit. I knew he was bringing it. He got away with it several times before I caught up with him.

busy with other, Suboxin wasn't as bad as some other shit. But I got around to him. I'm like, all right. So he had his visit and I went down to the block like a day after his visit. I'm like, I need to take you to S.HU. I'm doing an investigation on you.

I'm going to lock you up 72 hours. If I don't find anything, free to go, I'm going to leave your shit right here on the block. You're all good. Get over the dorm, or get over to the SACU to a strip fresco. I find nothing. I'm like, man, where's you got this shit?

He had in his fucking nose. I'm like, dude. You got spoxin in your nose, don't you? And he was, yes, I do. I go, can you blow it out? He goes, yeah, I go. So I told the officer, I go, go grab one of the metal bedpans. So I brought it in.

I go, can you blow it out into this bedpan? He was, yeah. So he's like, the third one hit that fucking bedpan like a bullet. Fucking bounced off. It came out so hard. The third sneeze. Do you ever look at these people in here like, what are you doing? Well, I pulled him aside later because he wanted to talk to me.

So I had a conversation with him. I'm like, I know you've been doing this man. I go, but I didn't want to hook your grandmother. I go, stop fucking making your grandmother bring shit into you. He goes, I have a drug problem. I go, I go, but that's not my problem, man. I got to do my job. And you're smuggling in contraband.

I said, but I didn't hook your grandmother. I don't use her again if you get out of here. So he went away. Did the inmates ever utilize, like, the vending machines in the visiting rooms? Yeah, when I got there as a sergeant in the particular jail, the last jail was at, I'll say, because I retired on it. that jail. So when I got to the last jail, they were allowed to go up there and handle money and vending machine, but we put a stop to that. Some of the good officers in the visit room

recommended that we changed that policy. So I did. I agreed with them and changed that policy. You know, so now the inmate couldn't even leave his table. He'd just point up, well, at first there was a line around the vending machines. They could walk up to that and point to their visitors. I want this, you know, whatever. Then I got to the point where they're still transferring shit up there, they sit at their table and the visitor can just go up and get them, bring them back. So we solved that little issue. Because I did find out when the inmates couldn't go up there, they were handing shit off all over the place.

So I was losing track of where the drugs are. Yeah, the way they did it where I was at is we couldn't get up from our seats. There was no tables. You couldn't get up from the seats. But your people would go to the vending machine and I guess leave something in there. And then the vending machine, the visiting room cleanup inmates would go and grab it from the machine later at the next. day or whatever or that evening.

They did that also. They did that also. And Mades are smart. Yeah, they are smart. But they always do get caught, though, too. Most of them. There was a couple I knew was doing a lot of shit, and I never caught him. I never caught him.

And there's one guy's funny because he was from Albany area, and I'm like, I tried to catch him. I couldn't. I don't think he was getting it in. I think he was distributing it in different ways, but I never caught him. And he was transferring out. I go, dude, I go, just be honest with me. I go, I'm not going to hook you. I'm not going to pass any information on.

I go, I just got to know. I go, were you soliciting and getting drugs to the facility? He goes, yes, I was. Could you also tell by their account activity on their books? Yeah, the dispersion of forms. On their commentary books. Yeah, I tracked money quite often to see how much they were making and shit. Yeah, you had to, I was a pain in the ass following that paper trail, though.

That was a pain in the ass. Did doing this job ever make you want to do, like, a different type of law enforcement investing, like maybe a cop or a detective or anything? Or were you happy with this? I think I could have been. Yeah, I think I probably should have done that. But I was enjoying what I was doing. I was making enough money.

I was providing for my family. So at the point where I was at where I thought about that, and it was like, that ship has sailed for me. Why did you decide to retire? So I decided to retire because I was a sergeant for six and a half years and I was burned out. I was so busy, I was just burned out. And I was about to be promoted to lieutenant.

So anytime you get a promotion in New York State, you go back on the rest. road, right? And I didn't want to do that because I would have been back on the road for two, maybe three years. So I did not want to do that. And I was burned out from being sergeant. So I went down to Albany, looked at my retirement numbers. I was satisfied with them. So I was like, I'm turning my paperwork in. I'm done. How long from when you turn your paperwork in is it get approved and you can actually... I turned him in early March and I retired May 18th that same year, two months. Oh, so a pretty quick turn around then. You can do it in 30 days.

How does it feel when you're working, you know, over two decades in a career like that? And then you retire and then the next day, you don't have to go to that career. It feels like you're on vacation. It feels like you're on vacation for a while. Yeah, that's the hardest thing to get used to. It's like, oh, I got to get ready to work in the morning. It's like, no, you don't. You know, you got that butterfly in your stomach thinking you have to go and then you don't.

And the funny thing is, and I tell guys this, you will feel your body decompressing, you know, from all the stress that you've endured. over your career, you will literally feel that change in your body. And I felt that. Do you miss it at all? I did in the beginning. I missed all the action, the commodity with the officers. I missed that for the first year, year and a half. But now I absolutely do not at all.

Have you been able to find hobbies to entertain yourself? Well, I've always, up to last year I've played competitive softball, league softball, softball tournaments, competitive volleyball, volleyball tournaments, like golf, martial arts. I opened up my own business a year ago, so I've been doing that. I took on some part-time jobs, so I'm busy. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm very busy. That's awesome. Yeah, I'll just sit around and so now. What do you think working in corrections taught you about the criminal justice system? It needs to be fixed. It needs to be fixed for everybody, staff and inmates alike. So in 2021, they passed, Governor Cuomo signed into law in March of 21 to

a halt bill. Have you heard of the halt bill? No. It's humane alternative to long-term solitary confinement is what it stands for. And what it does is it takes away the restriction time that inmates can do in shoe. So whereas if you assaulted staff or assaulted another inmate, you may be doing anywhere from 30 to 90 to six months. And shoe time, well, that's been completely eliminated. If you're over 55 years old, there's no shoe time. If you're under 18 years old, there's no shoe time.

and if you assault someone, you're only doing about 15 days. And if you do 15 days, then you're going to an RU unit, a residential rehabilitation unit, and you're doing some programming there and you're out of yourself or six hours a day or whatever. But that went into effect in 2022. So in 2021 it was signed. In 2022, the Halt Bill went into effect. In 2022, they had more assaults on an inmate than they've had in the history of New York State. In 2023, it raised that another thousand or 500 to a thousand.

In 2024, assaults from inmate to inmate went up again. So all that halt bill did was give the inmates the freedom to assault people. It gave them the freedom to distribute contraband. It gave them the freedom to bring contraband into the facilities a lot easier. Right? And there's a lot of inmates that don't agree with it. I think all the help bill did was help the inmates that are the assholes, the troublemakers, because the inmates that are trying to do their time,

there's no repercussions for somebody that's fucking with you, none at all. I've had a lot of inmates during my course of time, especially as a sergeant, that would cut themselves with a candle that either on their arm. I've had it in the face to go to PC, protective custody, so they could get into protective custody, which would transfer them out to another facility,

self-imposed PC, if you will. I've had inmates want to check into PC. They can no longer do that. So to get into SHU, you have to commit a very violent act. And I think the halt bill, although it may have been good intentions, it's done the complete opposite.

And you asked me earlier about how stress is with officers and officers and if a low staffing is affected the way they do their job, absolutely. They're under so much stress that has reduced the amount of staff. There's nobody in the state of New York that wants to be a correctional officer anymore. And the guys that can leave are leaving. So they're so understaffed,

guys are getting stuck for 16 to 20. four hours a day having to work these long shifts so they're stressed out they're burned out and it's and who pays for that everybody pays for that you know it's not helping the inmates in my opinion what do you think the solution is i i agree that s h u the special housing unit has been abused over the years i think i'm probably guilty of this myself as using it as a tool where it didn't need to be used i will give them that. It's been abused. But I think there are circumstances where inmates still need to be in solitary confinement for longer than 15 days. Like when I worked in Sullivan, correctional as a sergeant, there was inmates in the BHAU, the Behavioral Health Unit, that were doing shoe time for 20 years

because of their actions. 20 years assaulting people, stab and cutting people up. And now those same inmates that were violated so bad that they're doing 20 years are doing 15 days and they're back into population. You know what I mean? What's your personal take on the shoe? I think it's necessary. That's a tool that's necessary for disciplinary sanctions.

I think you can alleviate a lot of the reasons for going to shoe. I think you can reduce a lot of the time, but I don't think you can completely abandon it like we almost have in New York State at this point. But I think it's necessary, and it's not like on TV. You didn't do any shoe time, right?

Yeah, I did like six months. For what? Can I ask? Yeah, so the first time, I was on a, I got caught on a video. My cellmates were wrestling, and I was, like, getting choked out on the video, and they had, like, gotten the phone when they raided the room and stuff. So they put us all under investigation, and then they were like,

we're going to ship you to another low. So I got shipped to Danbury, which is, like, my hometown. But when you get shipped when you're in transit in the feds, if you come from the shoe, while you're in transit, you've got to get stuck in the shoe. So I got stuck in Philly for six weeks during transit because then the hurricane happened in Puerto Rico. So I was stuck there. Then I finally make it to Danbury. I'm on the yard in Danbury.

And they, SIS, which is like your division, but in the federal facilities on the investigation team, they locked me up, put me back in the shoe under investigation because I dated a guard's cousin. So they had to remove me from the compound. So I was stuck there another three months. and then I got shipped to Wisconsin. Oh. So both times I didn't really do anything wrong. I was just stuck there and that was miserable.

But I will say in Danbury, because I wasn't there on like a disciplinary issue, they let me be the orderly. So I got out and I was painting the cells. Yeah, you'd be a reporter. Yeah. Yeah. I did the laundry. I was doing painting. I was delivering meals.

So I got to do that, which help. But yeah, you could go miserable. Like that. And I was, there would be guys in there 90, 120 days because they had limits, but they can get it. All it has to do is get kept. kicked up to regional, and they approve it for over a certain amount of time. Yeah. But I just think it's crazy for the investigations, like how long people could sit in there for.

Well, we only had 72 hours for an investigation, which that's been eliminated. But if you're investigating an inmate, and a lot of times it's for their own safety, because I've had hits put on inmates before, and I put them in 72-hour investigations, they didn't get hit. So it can be for their own safety. but they've eliminated that. But that was necessary, though, in a lot of cases. 72-hour investigations were very important at times.

And now you don't have that. So if an enemy's going to get hit, he's going to get hit. And there's nothing you can do about it, really, right? You can't protect him. That's another thing I like about max gels too is you can still actually, unless they burn them out or whatever, which happened all the time too. Yeah, I think there just needs to be some type of balance. There's definitely excessive use of it, but it also, I don't know if it not,

necessarily needs to go away completely. I agree with you. There needs to be better balance with it. I think there needs to be more incentives for inmates because doing long-term shoe, Ian, it's not that high of a bar. You know what I mean? I mean, you can do your bid without going to shoe, right? If you go to shoe, you've more than likely been an asshole or got caught up in shit,

which does happen a lot. It's not that high of bar, to stay out of shoe. But if you do end up in shoe, yeah, I don't, I mean, 20 years. was way too long. A year is too long. I agree with that. It's got to be, it's got to be scaled back from what it was for sure, but I think they over killed it. And now it's just made everything so dangerous. Yeah, I mean, my question is for like the advocates that are like very anti-shoe. It's like, if someone stabs someone, what do you do with that person that stabbed that inmate? Where is he going in that moment when he does the stabbing and then how do you prevent that from happening?

Well, that stabbing, he would still go to shoe in that case for 15 days. I need to be out. But I think there needs to be more incentives in the prison system. To be honest you, I think we need more. We were talking about trailers earlier. I think that needs to be expanded. I think you need to offer that more to inmates. I think you need maybe a couple of honor jails, if you will,

if an inmate does his bid and he's doing it the way you should do it, right? Maybe he should get more privileges and go to another facility and have your own cooking devices, have your own shit, have more rack, have more phone time, have those privileges. I don't understand why you can. can't do that because you've got inmates that are doing their bid for 20 years and they're towing the line doing exactly what they do are in they're going to get caught up with these jackasses that don't care about anybody's bid right and then they get short and they're getting

caught up in it too so yeah i don't know man more incentives i think would help a little bit longer shoe time with uh assaults and and so they had the assaults i was telling you it increased every year and a lot of those assaults i can tell you as a sergeant there's a lot more assaults that happened inside a prison that aren't recorded. Like if I come up and assaulted you and you fought back, well, now it's a fight. It's getting written up as a fight. It's not getting written up as an assault most of the time. They still may write it up as an assault, depending on the situation, but a lot of times

they won't. So there's probably another 400 or 500 assaults that happen that we don't even hear about. But there's true time, and I've never done it, so I can't relate personally about how much it sucks. No doubt it does. but it's not like you see on TV though they get visits they get they get visits on the weekends from their family the chapel stops by the counselor stops by the sergeant stops by three times a day the lieutenant three times a day the kathenit three times a day the kathen they're getting people stopping by and talking to

them right yeah we had that visits were on the weekends it was just like a monday it was an off day and you can only get it for an hour um and then rec was just five days a week for i think it was an hour or 30 minutes and then showers or three times a week yeah showers three times a week three times a week they get wreck every day even on the weekends yeah they get wreck on the weekends oh we didn't get that visits are all day long well from like eight to two okay yeah yeah sounds like a better situation than in the feds yeah yeah I mean you're getting out of your cell a little bit more but now they're getting out of cell six six hours a day so yeah you know 15 days and then they're getting out and of the cell for six hours, which I don't know, man.

It's just, I agree with you. Some things have got to change, though. Absolutely. So, yeah, then I started up a security business when I retired. Black Op Security Investigations. Do you have a website for it? I had a website for a year. It got absolutely zero traffic, so I'm not paying for it anymore.

I have an email. Okay. It's BlackOps NNY at Gmail.com. We'll put that in the bio, too, at the episode. Okay, that sounds good. What kind of security do you do? So we do events. we do weddings, you know, if they're a high-profile wedding

or if it's a wedding at a particular venue that has no staff there after a certain hour, we're there for that. We do like the big poker run, Irish festivals, concerts, smaller concerts and venues. Pretty much it will do personal security, do escorts, serve papers, things like that, investigate for you.

Well, I know who to go to. for private security now. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Maddie Ice doesn't cut it sometimes. He's like a deer in headlights, you know? You got to be careful. We got Bella as our guard dog.

Yeah, she's a good girl, though. She'll take care of you. Yeah, she's getting better. Sometimes she'll sit with me on my lap and, like, for the whole interview. Oh, that's cool. She actually likes doing it. I've had a couple interviews. That guy that you watched his episode from New York.

Yeah. She was on my lap the whole time. I recall that now, yeah. Yeah, she's cute. I was shocked that she was able to sit like that. She laid right there? Yeah, sometimes she snores, and I have to wake her up. Yeah, made no fuss at all.

Yeah, but Randy, thanks so much for coming on the show today, man. Of course, thanks for having me, Ian. See, you were worried you weren't going to have much to talk about, and you ran for an hour and 40 minutes. Oh, there's a lot of shit I still want to talk about. We can do it in part two of this. We're not going to, but no, there's a lot of things that I thought I would be talking about today that I never got to. Yeah, well, you did a great interview, man, and I appreciate you coming on the show. All right, thank you.

Awesome.