Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women

Location	247 Harris Road Bedford Hills, New York
Status	Operational
Security class	Maximum
Capacity	921[1]
Population	556[2] (as of July 1, 2021)
Opened	1901
Managed by	NYS DOCCS
Street address	247 Harris Road
City	Bedford Hills
State/province	NY
ZIP Code	10507-2400

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a

The site has been known as the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills, and later as Westfield State Farm.[4] Under the name Westfield State Farm, it housed 487 women in 1930, and 645 in 1940.^[7]

A prison nursery was first established upon the opening of the prison, in 1901. The current incarnation, Bedford Hills' family-centered program, was founded by

In the post–Furman v. Georgia period, from the time New York reinstated the death penalty in 1995 until its repeal in 2007, Bedford Hills prison was designated as having the state death row for women.^[10] However, New York State did not execute anyone during that time, nor since 1963.

Political unrest and due process

In 1974, in what came to be called the August Rebellion, the prisoners briefly took over parts of the prison in reaction to guards' assault on Carol Crooks, an incarcerated woman organizing for prisoners' rights.^[11][12] About 200 of the 450-plus incarcerated women rebelled in protest of the inhumane treatment of Crooks at Bedford Hills. The order directing such compliance had been in effect since 1975.

The prisoners won a subsequent civil-action lawsuit, initiated by Elizabeth Powell, that led to greater protections of Fourth Amendment (due process) rights for incarcerated people, in Powell v. Ward (1976).^[13]

Following the 1974 rebellion, the prison administration failed to give legal due process in prison disciplinary hearings. Incarcerated women who had been held in solitary confinement brought a lawsuit for violation of due process. They won a $127,000 fund from an out-of-court settlement reached in 1981 after a federal District Court "held state authorities in contempt for failing to provide due process for inmates involved in disciplinary hearings."^[14]

A prisoners' committee chose to spend the fund for improving prison life; the top priority was a $10,000 lobbying fund to be used to press for merit time legislation to allow time off for good behavior.^[14] The committee's purchases also included word processors and a copier; recreational equipment such as roller skates; and legal services, including paying for lobbying to have merit time eligibility expanded under state law.^[14] An uprising in the prison in November, 1981, that resulted in disciplinary reports against 61 inmates. The reports were exactly the opposite of the court's ruling, Mr. Coughlin observed, adding, You can't throw away due process by whim. The administrative staff was all demoted or transferred, and the disciplinary charges against the inmates were dropped. Thomas A. Coughlin, State Corrections Commissioner, stated in 1982 that the troubles at Bedford were the fault of the previous local administration.^[14]

Notable people incarcerated at Bedford Hills

• St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and as adjunct professor at Columbia University
  .
• Stacey Castor,^[15][16] wife who was charged in 2007 with second degree murder, second degree attempted murder, and offering a false instrument in the first degree. She was found guilty of intentionally poisoning then-husband David Castor with antifreeze in 2005 and attempting to murder her daughter Ashley Wallace. In addition, she was suspected of having murdered her first husband, Michael Wallace, whose grave lay next to David Castor's. After an autopsy performed on Michael Wallace's body found traces of antifreeze and rat poison in his remains, the medical examiner ruled the death a poisoning homicide. Castor was found dead in her cell on June 11, 2016, as a result of a heart attack.
• 1981 Brinks robbery as Kathy Boudin. She was not represented by counsel at trial and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences at Bedford Hills. She was granted parole on April 17, 2019, after spending 38 years in prison. She co-founded the AIDS Counseling and Education (ACE) program at Bedford Hills, which has been emulated in prisons nationwide, and was instrumental in establishing a college program at Bedford Hills that has helped more than 100 prisoners earn college degrees.^[17]
• Carol Crooks, organizer for reform of prison conditions and due process for incarcerated people^[18]
• Amy Fisher,^[15] famously nicknamed "The Long Island Lolita" by the press, she was convicted of the 1992 shooting of the wife of her lover Joey Buttafuoco, with whom she began an affair as a 16-year-old student. She served seven years in prison and was released in 1999.
• Scarsdale Diet. Eleven years after Harris's conviction,^[19] Governor Mario Cuomo commuted the remainder of her sentence on December 29, 1992, as she was being prepped for quadruple bypass heart surgery. She was released from prison by the parole board after serving 11 years and later moved to the Whitney Center, a retirement home in Hamden, Connecticut.^[20] She died on December 23, 2012, aged 89, at an assisted-living facility in New Haven, Connecticut
  .
• Katrina Haslip, co-founder of AIDS Counseling and Education at Bedford Hills and AIDS activist after release who was a major contributor to expanding eligibility for federal AIDS social security payments to more women and intravenous drug users^[21]
• Donna Hylton, was convicted of second degree murder and two counts of first degree kidnapping. She was sentenced to concurrent indeterminate prison terms of 25 years to life.^[22][23] She served 27 years in prison. After prison, Donna Hylton wrote the memoir A Little Piece of Light and founded a non profit with the same name which helps individuals who are directly impacted by trauma and involvement in the criminal justice system.^[24]
• hit man to kill her husband of 24 years because of a lengthy, acrimonious divorce.^[25][26]
• Reminisce Mackie, a rapper known as Remy Ma, got into an altercation with a friend inside a vehicle parked outside a club, when Mackie fired two shots in the woman's stomach. Mackie later turned herself in, and was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to eight years. Mackie was released on parole July 31, 2014.
• Joyce Mitchell assisted in the escape of inmates
  David Sweat and Richard Matt, and was sentenced to 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison. She was released on February 5, 2020.^[27]
• Yoselyn Ortega, perpetrator of the 2012 Murder of the Krim siblings.^[28][29][30]
• Joy Powell was charged with felony assault and burglary, though she claims the accusations are fabricated and politically motivated. She will be eligible for parole in the year 2045, when she is 84 years old.
• Nixzaliz Santiago,^[16] convicted of manslaughter
  in connection with the death of her daughter, Nixzmary Brown, and sentenced to 43 years in prison. Nixzmary's stepfather Cesar Rodriguez tortured Nixzmary (by binding her, duct-taping her mouth, and beat her), and her mother allegedly ignored this and didn't contact authorities in time to save her daughter's life.
• life in prison without the possibility for parole
  .
• Lacey Spears, serving 20 years to life for the murder of her son Garnett.
• life in prison for the murder of several of her children
  . She was denied parole in March 2007 after serving 20 years in prison. Released from prison on August 21, 2018.
• life in prison
  .
• fraudster
  . She moved to New York City in 2013 and created the fictitious identity of Anna Delvey, pretending to be a wealthy German heiress. In 2019, she was convicted of multiple counts of attempted grand larceny, theft of services and larceny in the second degree for scamming New York City hotels and wealthy acquaintances.
• Blanche Wright, convicted of murder, as a
  hitwoman accomplice of The Council's contract killer Robert Young aka Miguel Sanchez's, and sentenced to Bedford Hills on November 11, 1980.^[33][34][35]
• Nicole Addimando, found guilty of second-degree murder of her boyfriend Chris Grover. She was sentenced to 19 years to life.^[36]
• Tiffany VanAlstyne, On Dec. 18, 2014, VanAlstyne choked her cousin Kenneth White in their mobile home on Thacher Park Road after she became "a little frustrated" with the kindergartner, she said. Police discovered Kenneth lifeless in a snowbank across the street from the home, but only after VanAlstyne delayed their investigation by concocting a lie that kidnappers abducted the boy. She was sentenced to 18 years to life.
• Angela Pollina. Pollina and her fiancee, former disgraced NYPD officer Michael Valva were both convicted of 2nd degree murder in the death of 8 year old Thomas Valva. Thomas had Autism.^{[citation needed]} Thomas and his brothers were starved, beaten, not allowed to use the bathroom and mentally abused. Thomas was forced to sleep in a freezing cold garage with no pillows or blankets and froze to death which his father Michael Valva and fiancee Angela Pollina tried to cover up.

See also

•  New York (state) portal

The Bedford Hills Correctional Facility participates in the program Puppies Behind Bars. PBB trains prison inmates to raise service dogs for wounded war veterans and first responders, as well as explosive-detection canines for law enforcement.^[37][38]

References