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| Attica prison chief ready for life 'outside' |
| By thedailynewsonline.com |
| Published: 10/01/2010 |
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ATTICA — Attica Correctional Facility Prison Superintendent Jim Conway has a simple way to describe himself. “I’m a prison brat,” he said. Conway, 58, followed in his father’s footsteps and spent his entire career with the state Department of Correctional Services. He will retire next month after 38 years on the job, most of which was spent inside Attica. “It’s always been my home base, so to speak,” Conway said as he sat in his office Wednesday morning. His last day on the job, followed by a ceremonial walk out the main gates, is Oct. 8. He will also do a walk-through with Corrections Commissioner Brian Fischer on Oct. 20. Fischer has not yet announced who will replace Conway and become the prison’s 10th warden. Conway, an Attica native, said when he was growing up, there were two major employers in the community — the prison and the Westinghouse plant. His father, the late B. Joseph Conway, worked as a corrections officer at Attica from 1946 until his retirement in 1979. “My father’s friends were prison guards. They bowled on the same team,” Conway said. In 1972 Conway was attending Genesee Community College when his dad told him about a opening in the prison’s maintenance department. “I really wasn’t setting the world on fire as a college student,” he said. He accepted the position and a year later became a prison guard. Conway accepted short-term transfers to other facilities over the years because that was the best way to obtain promotions. He estimated he spent about four years working at other prisons and 34 at Attica. In 1999 he was named the facility’s first deputy superintendent. He was promoted to superintendent, otherwise known as the warden, in 2003. “I’ve never aspired to go anywhere beyond this,” he said. Conway said the biggest change he experienced during his tenure is the mental health care available to inmates. Attica has about 2,200 convicts, an estimated 400 of them with diagnosed mental health problems and 190 with serious mental health issues. The prison’s medical staff runs a 12-week program for mentally ill inmates who also have poor disciplinary records. That initiative was created about eight years ago, in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of inmates’ rights groups. Most convicts who successfully complete the 12 weeks are worked back into the prison’s general population without much trouble. “It’s well known that people who participate in the program don’t continue to get misbehavior reports,” Conway said. Hardly anyone of a certain age — those who grew up in the 1960s and ’70s — can talk about Attica without mentioning the bloodiest prison riot in American history. Forty-three people died during the course of the 1971 Attica uprising, including 11 state employees and 32 inmates. Thirty-nine individuals, among them 29 inmates and 10 guards and civilian employees held hostage in D Yard, died by state police gunfire during the retaking on the morning of Sept. 13. The riot started Sept. 9, 1971, when inmates protested conditions inside the facilities. The convicts gained control of parts of the prison; about 1,100 of them ended up in D Yard with dozens of hostages. Gov. Nelson Rockefeller refused to negotiate face-to-face with the inmates and, after four days of talks produced no resolution, ordered state police to end the riot. Autopsies later showed all 11 hostages who were killed in the retaking died by gunfire. The inmates had no firearms. Inmates killed one prison guard, who was fatally injured on the first day of the riot. On Sept. 9, 1971, Conway was a student at GCC. His dad car-pooled to work with three other officers. “Only three of them came back,” Conway said. Read More. |
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