WEBMASTER NOTE: This "End of Year Message" from NYC DOC Commissioner Dora B. Schriro, transmitted to members of the Department Friday afternoon, Dec. 30, is posted here because it serves as an excellent listing of some of last year's highlights. When future students of NY Correction History run their Internet researches via Google (or some other ubiquitous search engine of that advanced era), they may find this little End-of-Year essay encapsulates quite a diverse list of references to interesting developments in NYC DOC history during 2011. The webmaster has taken the graphic design liberty of bulleting separate entries in order to spotlight the individual items on the list. The End-of-Year message was all text without images. For this web presentation of the text, the webmaster has added the look-back-at-2011 images from the Medal Day booklet. .


End-of-Year Message from NYC DOC Commissioner Dora B. Schriro

The year comes to a close and the holiday season warms us with good tidings. It's a terrific time of year to reflect on our blessings and to rededicate ourselves to the people and principles that matter most.



Above is a reduced 72 dpi version of a NYCHS scan of photo montage Page 33 of the Nov. 15, 2011 Medal Day booklet. Click for 300 dpi image. Use browser's back button to return.
In that spirit, I want you to know how proud I am to serve alongside you and to see firsthand the indelible mark that each of you makes – every shift, every day – on your fellow officers, the inmate population, and our community.

It is frustrating when the press focuses on the occasional bad news story. There is so much good news to tell.

It comes to us in many mediums including 311 calls and letters through the DOC website.

“Caller states that she went to see her son at OBCC,” a recent message began.

“Caller states that she started to feel sick, but still wanted to visit her son.

“Caller states that she ended up having several seizures at the facility, and that two MOS saved her life.”

Those correction professionals, exceptional examples of the city’s Boldest – are Capt. Troy Hurley and CO Chamicqua Thompson. They didn't just do what was minimally required – make a phone call, follow a directive, wait for a higher ranking individual to take over . . . for this woman, Capt. Hurley and CO Thompson did absolutely everything imaginable to help . . . escorting her to a quiet area, making sure she was comfortable, keeping her calm and tending to her until the ambulance arrived. Caller states she is “very grateful,” – and we are, too.

Here’s another. An attorney was on his way to court several weeks ago when he went into a severe hypoglycemic insulin shock near the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. CO Bridgette Jefferson, assigned to the Manhattan Detention Complex, seeing the gentleman in distress, took charge. She tested his blood glucose, explained to him what was happening, gave him food to raise his blood sugar levels, kept him warm, and then took him into the courthouse. “I am so grateful for Officer Jefferson's gentle kindness, humanity, generosity and well-executed intervention,” he wrote – and we are, too.



Above is a reduced 72 dpi version of a NYCHS scan of photo montage Page 34 of the Nov. 15, 2011 Medal Day booklet. Click for 300 dpi image. Use browser's back button to return.
This year was a year with 365 days of giving, acts of kindness and courtesies offered and accepted in every jail, gift giving from your heart that makes our DOC a great organization, a correctional organization. The high degree of commitment and compassion demonstrated in these stories is far from limited to medical emergencies.

Together, you have worked as one to advance all of our front line initiatives –

  • the Back to Basics push to keep us all safe with more searches,
  • more finds of dangerous contraband and more arrests;
  • increasing bing capacity,
  • adding sanctions, and reducing the backlog;
  • bringing to fruition the revision of the custody classification system;
  • putting to bed the remaining Benjamin issues;
  • making sea-change improvements in the management of M-inmates and leading the Mayor’s Steering Committee on Mentally Ill Inmates; and
  • improving the workplace by involving more MOS as C.A.R.E. first responders,
  • establishing a military support group and
  • participating as a department in the Veteran’s Day parade for the very first time.


Above is a reduced 72 dpi version of a NYCHS scan of unnumbered facing photo montage pages at the front of the Nov. 15, 2011 Medal Day booklet. Click for 150 dpi image. Use browser's back button to return.
DOC staff stood out in so many ways.

  • A team of ten COs and Captains stepped up and stood out when they elected to be trained on their own time to become EMT-certified responders, completing a course in six weeks that usually takes six months.
  • Capt. Charles Matthews, a heavyweight, the first ever to be selected to represent the DOC at the Annual Battle of the Badges boxing tournament, won.
  • The department’s football team, the Orange Crush, finished its first season 3 and 3, and
  • GMDC took first place in this year’s winter basketball tournament.
  • You collected over 200 cell phones for victims of domestic violence;
  • participated in blood drives;
  • raised money and delivered toys to needy children continuing the great tradition begun by ADW Janice Jackson; and
  • went the distance to raise money in the breast cancer walk, and
  • to fight birth defects.


Above is a reduced 72 dpi version of a NYCHS scan of unnumbered facing photo montage pages at the back of the Nov. 15, 2011 Medal Day booklet. Click for 150 dpi image. Use browser's back button to return.
There was also your expert response to the fire at GMDC in July and the exceptional handling of operations during Hurricane Irene in August. We came through each of these extraordinary events without any harm to staff or inmates. Day in and day out throughout 2011, you figured out how to make a bad day good and a good day better. You are the best. You are the boldest.

We celebrated with staff promoted to positions of great responsibility, and we bade fond goodbyes to friends who resigned to take on other challenges or to retire and enjoy well deserved time off. We wept with one another when fellow officers – our friends – passed, often, far too often and far too young. And when little ones were taken from them, we experienced their losses as if they were our own.

In the spirit of this holiday season, and to all about whom we care and who are entrusted to our care, let’s all put our hearts and minds together to focus on the most important holiday wish of all for 2012: Peace and Prosperity, Health and Happiness, A Blessed New Year to You and Yours.

Happy Holidays, and have a wonderful New Year.