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New York Lowers Minimum Age 
for Prison Guards

Loaded on June 1, 2025 published in Prison Legal News June, 2025, page 46
Filed under: Guards/Staff, Guard Unions, Staff Training. Location: New York.

An approved bill in New York state will lower the minimum hiring age of its prison guards from 21 to 18, following a strike that resulted in over 2,000 guards being fired earlier this year [See: PLN, March 2025, p.61.] The firings added on to a larger staffing crisis in New York’s prison system that, in April, led to early releases for some prisoners convicted of minor crimes. The bill includes special rules for the 18-year-old guards, outlawing them from obtaining firearms and limiting their “contact roles” with prisoners during their first year and a half on the job.

Nationally, as the incarcerated population rises, chronically understaffed state prisons have become increasingly common. In Wisconsin, where a quarter of the jobs for guards were unfilled in 2024, prisoners at the Waupun Correctional Institution were on lockdown for more than a year. At one prison in Georgia, conditions were so bad that a prisoner’s body wasn’t discovered until it was already decomposing five days after his death. Along with New York, states including Florida, Maine, and Texas have also lowered the minimum guard age to 18.  

 

Sources: NPR, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 

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