Attica Correctional Facility is a maximum security campus New York State prison in the Town of Attica,
New York
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* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
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, operated by the
New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision
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* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
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. It was constructed in the 1930s in response to earlier riots within the New York state prisons.
A CS gas system (chlorobenzylidine malononitrile) installed in the mess hall and industry areas has been used to quell conflicts in these areas. The prison now holds numerous inmates who are serving various types of sentences (short-term to life). They are often sent to this facility because of disciplinary problems in other facilities.See Attica Prison riot The prison is a maximum security facility.
In 1984, immediately adjacent to the Attica prison, the construction of the
Wyoming Correctional Facility
Wyoming Correctional Facility is a medium-security state men's prison in Town of Attica, Wyoming County, New York. The prison is located adjacent to the better-known maximum security Attica Correctional Facility. The Wyoming prison first opened ...
was completed. The Wyoming prison is a
medium security
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
facility.
Rebellions
Attica was the site of a
prison uprising
A prison riot is an act of concerted defiance or disorder by a group of prisoners against the prison administrators, prison officers, or other groups of prisoners.
Prison riots have not been the subject of many academic studies or research inquir ...
in September 1971 in which inmates took control of the prison for several days. They were seeking to negotiate to improve conditions and treatment at the overcrowded prison. The state's suppression of the uprising resulted in 43 deaths, of which law enforcement gunfire killed 9 hostage correctional officers and civilian employees, and 30 prisoners. One guard died of injuries sustained from inmates in the first day of the uprising. Three inmates were killed by other prisoners the day law enforcement retook the prison.
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
who confessed to killing six people and wounding several others in New York City during the late 1970s. Since becoming a Christian, Berkowitz has said that he should pay for the sins he has committed and will not seek parole. Berkowitz is now housed at
Shawangunk Correctional Facility
Shawangunk Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison for males located in the Town of Shawangunk, Ulster County, New York in the United States. The facility lies just outside the Ulster County hamlet of Wallkill, whose post office serv ...
.
*
H. Rap Brown
Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (born Hubert Gerold Brown; October 4, 1943), formerly known as H. Rap Brown, is a civil rights activist, black separatist, and convicted murderer who was the fifth chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...
,
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
leader, served a sentence in Attica from 1971 to 1976.
*
Jimmy Caci
Vincent Dominic "Jimmy" Caci '' Los Angeles crime family, served eight years in Attica during the 1970s for armed robbery.
* Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty to murdering John Lennon in 1980. Chapman was sentenced to 20 years-to-life; he has been denied parole twelve times amid campaigns against his release. Chapman is now housed at
Green Haven Correctional Facility
Green Haven Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in New York. The prison is located in the Town of Beekman in Dutchess County. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision lists the address as Route 216 ...
.
*
Joseph Christopher
Joseph Gerard Christopher (July 26, 1955 – March 1, 1993) was an American serial killer who gained infamy for a series of murders in the early 1980s. He is believed to have killed at least twelve African American men and boys and wounded numerou ...
, a serial killer who committed murders in the early 1980s in Buffalo, Manhattan, and Rochester. He was held in Attica in 1985. He died March 1, 1993.
*
Edward Cummiskey
Edward "Eddie The Butcher" Cummiskey Jr. (1934 Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan to August 20, 1976 Chelsea, Manhattan) was a New York mobster who served as a mentor to Jimmy Coonan, leader of the Westies. Cummiskey is reputed to have shown Coonan how t ...
,
Westies
The Westies were a New York City-based Irish American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen nei ...
hitman during the 1970s.
*Valentino Dixon was exonerated and released in 2018, after 27 years of incarceration, after another man confessed to the murder for which Dixon was convicted.
* Dean Faiello, unlicensed physician who was convicted of the manslaughter of banker Maria Cruz in 2003.
*Colin Ferguson, who murdered six people in 1993 on the
Long Island Rail Road
The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...
(LIRR) in a racist attack. Ferguson was sentenced to multiple life sentences; as of 2010, he is housed at
Upstate Correctional Facility
Upstate Correctional Facility is a maximum security state prison for men in Franklin County, New York, US. The prison, in the Town of Malone, was the first New York State prison built as a supermax.Gonnerman, Jennifer.The Supermax Solution" ' ...
.
*
Kendall Francois
Kendall Francois (July 26, 1971 – September 11, 2014) was a serial killer from Poughkeepsie (city), New York, Poughkeepsie, New York, convicted of killing eight women, from 1996 to 1998. After his conviction and sentencing, Francois was housed ...
murdered eight women and stored their bodies in his home in
Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...
. Serving a life sentence without parole, he died in September 2014.
*
Joe Gallo
Joseph Gallo (April 7, 1929 – April 7, 1972), also known as "Crazy Joe", was an Italian-American mobster and Caporegime of the Colombo crime family of New York City.
In his youth, Gallo was diagnosed with schizophrenia after an arrest. He so ...
of the Colombo crime family spent nine years in Attica for attempted extortion.
* Sam Melville, notorious as "mad bomber" in 1960s. He was among 30 prisoners killed by New York State Police and other law enforcement, in addition to 10 hostages, in their suppression of the Attica Prison uprising on September 13, 1971.
* El Sayyid Nosair,
1993 World Trade Center bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S., carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the complex. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas en ...
terrorist was housed in Attica for a short period related to the 1990
assassination of Meir Kahane
Meir Kahane, an Israeli American rabbi, ultra-nationalist politician and militant, was assassinated by El Sayyid Nosair on 5 November 1990, shortly after 9:00 p.m. at the New York Marriott East Side, a hotel in Manhattan, New York City.
...
.
*
Ralph "Bucky" Phillips
Ralph James "Bucky" Phillips (born June 19, 1962) is a convicted murderer from Western New York caught on September 8, 2006, by the Pennsylvania State Police.The Associated Press. (2006"Phillips Case: Ex-fugitive "Bucky" Phillips pleads guilty ...
, convicted murderer, was captured after one of the largest manhunts in New York state history.
* Joseph 'Mad Dog' Sullivan, a mobster and the only man who has ever escaped the prison.
*
Joel Rifkin
Joel David Rifkin (born January 20, 1959) is an American serial killer, who was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women between 1989 and 1993, though it is believed he had up to 17 victims.
Early life
Rifkin's birth pare ...
, serial killer, was held here for more than four years in solitary confinement before being transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Clinton County.
*
Willie Sutton
William Francis Sutton Jr. (June 30, 1901 – November 2, 1980) was an American bank robber. During his forty-year robbery career he stole an estimated $2 million, and he eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison and escape ...
, robbed 100 banks from the late 1920s to 1952.
* David Sweat, killed a
Broome County
Broome County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 United States census, the county had a population of 198,683. Its county seat is Binghamton. The county was named for John Broome, the state's lieutenant governor when Bro ...
deputy sheriff in 2002 and escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015; was captured and transferred to Attica in 2017.