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  “For the Buffalo community, this is one of the last opportunities to hear firsthand from people who were there.”

  Teresa Miller

  Professor of Law

By ILENE FLEISCHMANN

Published: Aug. 18, 2011

Forty years ago, the deadliest prisoner rebellion in U.S. history occurred, and next month, UB will present a major conference next month that will bring together prisoner advocates, legislators, policymakers, corrections professionals, activists and people who were on the front lines of the conflict.

“40 Years After the Attica Uprising: Looking Back, Moving Forward” is sponsored by the UB Law School and its Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. Admission is free—with pre-registration—and open to the public.

The two-day event marks the anniversary of the uprising at Attica State Prison, about 40 miles east of Buffalo, that brought the world’s attention to long-festering problems in the U.S. prison system. The Attica Uprising began on Sept. 9, 1971, and ended four days later when then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller ordered state troopers to storm and retake the prison from the inmates who had taken control. Twenty-nine prisoners and 11 security and civilian staff died.

The conference will open on Sept. 11 with a screening of the documentary “Ghosts of Attica” in the Burchfield Penny Art Center at Buffalo State College. Conference events will be held Sept. 12 and 13 on UB’s North and South campuses, and at a downtown Buffalo church. View the schedule of events on the conference website.

The conference “is about healing, in part,” says Teresa A. Miller, UB Law professor and conference organizer. “This is the last decade in which these people are going to be able to sit down together and reflect upon Attica’s turbulent past. This conference is unique in that it creates a dialogue between stakeholders with diverse, ideological perspectives on the Attica Uprising. For the Buffalo community, this is one of the last opportunities to hear firsthand from people who were there.”

In addition to looking back at the uprising, the conference will feature several influential policymakers, including New York State Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubrey, chair of the Committee on Corrections and a vocal advocate for prison reform. Miller says the event comes at a time when the corrections industry, an entrenched part of the state’s and the nation’s economy, is undergoing reconsideration.

“We run a very expensive prison system. New York is leading the country in looking at the wisdom of that and evaluating alternatives,” Miller says. “We’re at a point at which we need to reform and consider downsizing a system that has just grown too large. As a parent, you spank your child as a last resort, after nothing else has changed their behavior. That needs to be the way we approach corrections as well, with incarceration as a last resort. Growing the prison system and locking people up as a job-creation strategy is morally wrong, economically inefficient and counterproductive.”

The conference also is an occasion to re-examine the work of corrections officers, who, according to Miller, suffer stress-related illnesses at rates far greater than that of the general population, as well as disproportionate rates of drug abuse, domestic violence and other social maladies. And they die young—at age 58 on average, she says. “Day after day, it’s all negative,” she says of the job. “It takes a toll.”

Keynote speakers for the conference include Brian Fischer, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. In addition to academic researchers, presenters also include:

• Malcolm Bell, a former special assistant attorney general who helped lead the investigation into the uprising and the state response.
• Arthur O. Eve, a negotiator and observer in 1971, and a former New York State assemblyman.
• Herman Schwartz, also an observer, and a UB Law professor in 1971.
• Michael Smith, a corrections officer who was held hostage and wounded during the retaking of the prison.
• Jim Conway, who recently retired as the prison’s superintendent.