By WESLEY PARNELL / NEW YORK TIMES
Women hoping to visit their loved ones at New York prisons are being turned away after scanners pick up what they say are menstrual products. Some have had their visitation rights suspended.
Nearly a year ago, corrections officers throughout New York walked off the job in a wildcat strike, sending dozens of state prisons into chaos.
The officers said they were protesting severe staffing shortages, excessive mandatory overtime and dangerous conditions, and they only returned to work after Gov. Kathy Hochul activated roughly 6,000 National Guard troops, and a State Supreme Court judge ordered the unauthorized strike to end.
State officials, negotiating with the corrections officers’ union, agreed to a key officer demand: To meet with inmates in person, all visitors at state prisons would have to pass through full-body security scanners, which are supposed to better screen for contraband.