--- title: A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close | TIME description: A drop in crime and fewer inmates means Lyon Mountain, New York, is about to lose its prison, the main employer in a town of 400 canonical: https://time.com/video/X3EfQsz3/ og:title: A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close og:description: A drop in crime and fewer inmates means Lyon Mountain, New York, is about to lose its prison, the main employer in a town of 400 og:url: https://time.com/video/X3EfQsz3/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/X3EfQsz3/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close twitter:description: A drop in crime and fewer inmates means Lyon Mountain, New York, is about to lose its prison, the main employer in a town of 400 twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/X3EfQsz3/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close [Watch (HLS stream): A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/X3EfQsz3.m3u8) (6:59)  _Published 2010-11-15. A drop in crime and fewer inmates means Lyon Mountain, New York, is about to lose its prison, the main employer in a town of 400_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:07 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Trump Seeks to Boost Employment of Ex-Prisoners with New Legislation](/video/rRGH1alL/) ### Trump Seeks to Boost Employment of Ex-Prisoners with New Legislation [Four Inmates Found Dead at Maximum-Security Prison](/video/0jm9LNAz/) ### Four Inmates Found Dead at Maximum-Security Prison [At Least 60 Inmates Killed in Brazil Prison Riot](/video/eolXL9sG/) ### At Least 60 Inmates Killed in Brazil Prison Riot --- ## Transcript >> In Lyon Mountain, a small town in Upstate New York, residents are bracing for a winter that some say, the town might not recover from. >> The likelihood is that the town is just gonna wither and die. >> In a couple of months, the town of around 400 will lose its main employer, a minimum security state prison. >> We feel like our town is dying all over again. It died when the mine closed, it died when the school closed, and now it's gonna die again, all over again, when the prison closes. >> It's gonna be pretty dead, that's what I think. >> Twenty- year old Ali Greene, was born and raised in Lyon Mountain. She works part- time at the Mobil Station, which sits diagonal from the jail. It's one of eleven prisons in what is known as the North Country. Everybody around here has a friend or relative who works as a Corrections Officer or CO. >> A majority of the people around here is that they've got a State job and it's as a CO. Like my boyfriend, he's taken the CO test on Tuesday, and he's obviously not gonna end up, up here. >> Over the last few decades as crime rates soared, many rural towns tied their economies to what seemed like a recession- proof prison industry. According to a Congressional Research Service Report, at one point in the nineties, a new prison was built in the U. S. on average every 15 days. But a study by the Pew Center on the State says, for the first time in 38 years, state prison populations on the whole are down, New York system decreased by more than 1, 500 inmates last year. Lyon Mountain, with a capacity of 162 beds is down to forty- some prisoners, around the same number as people who work at the prison. >> Lyon Mountain is an excellent facility for low- level, nonviolent, short- term offenders. I don't have very many of them left. >> The reason for that, as New York Corrections Commissioner Brian Fischer, is because a host of early release programs are working. He also admits recent reforms to the 1973 Rockefeller Laws, which mandated lengthy sentences for even minor drug possession, play a role. >> Keep somebody in the street on outpatient drug treatment is still gonna be a lot less than sending him to prison for a year, two years, whatever it is. >> New York and many other states around the country are also seeing a substantial drop in crime over the last decade and a half. The end result is that demand for prison space is down. For states like New York that are facing billion dollar budget crisis, half full prisons like Lyon Mountain begin to look like government waste. >> I could move twenty guys out of Lyon Mountain, save whatever, several thousand dollars but when I close the Lyon Mountain on an annual basis, that's $ 7 million savings. -$ 7. 2 million really, means what to New York State. We'd consider a 'spit in the bucket'. >> Here's Holly girl. >> I'm not moving anywhere else. I've-- born and raised here, and this is the place I'll die. >> Nancy Kaska, just retired from her job at the Lyon Mountain Correctional Facility. She grew up in the town and followed her father and brother, both Correctional Officers into the prison industry. >> This is about the only good income there is, you know, you got your state retirement, you got your health insurance, which is a really big thing, and, you know, a State job is a secure job. >> None of the ninety- some employees at the prison will lose their jobs, some like Kaska, will take early retirement, others will be transferred to different facilities. Part of the frustration for locals, most of them have never lived anywhere else, is that the prison closing feels like Déjà vu. >> The worst day was probably June 30th, 1967, when the Lyon Mountain mines closed. >> The town was long known for its iron ore mine which provided the raw materials to build parts of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Golden Gate Bridge. Then a few years later, more bad news. >> There wasn't enough children here in this town to have a school so, I was on a school board too when we decided to close the Lyon Mountain school. That was-- that was bad news, too. >> But, around 1983, just as things looked their bleakest, the State of New York, came calling. >> So, we got the chance to turn our school into a prison. It was like, huh, that's the best thing that could happen. >> You know, it, is it the best industry in the world to have in your area? Probably not, but for us it's been jobs, it's been stability, it's helped with our population's, keeping our populations stable. >> State Senator Betty Little's District of 306, 000 residents includes Nancy Kaska, Lyon Mountain and around 12, 000 inmates. >> I'm not trying to create inmates just for job creation, but when you start looking at the prison system let's look at where the land is cheaper, where there is an effect on the economy, and are you affecting the economy by taking, closing one of these facilities. We're closing facilities in the North Country that are gonna remain empty. >> For now, Town Supervisor Ves Pivetta is scrambling to ask the state some questions before the January deadline. Like, who will pick up the tab for maintaining the building until it finds a new tenant? And, who will cover the $ 30, 000 the State contributes towards the local water tax, and most importantly, what next? >> I'm gonna put it politely, what the hell is going on? That's it. I gotta have answers. Mean I don't want this town to die. >> Despite the decision to close the prison, hundreds of thousands of state dollars were spent this year on a new laundry room, and water treatment facility. These improvements are questioned by local skeptics, but defended by Commissioner Fischer, who says, there was always a chance the prison might be saved at the last minute. The facility, by all accounts, is in good shape. And, rumors abound about the future of the building which will no doubt determine the fate of Lyon Mountain, New York. >> It's a great little place, anybody can move in tomorrow. I would love to see a non- profit, maybe a health organization. >> One of the things that was talked about was that if we could get a brewery. >> Oh, I definitely think like a recreation center would be cool. That, that'd be nice, God only knows. >> For TIME Video, I'm Jesse Hardman, in Lyon Mountain, New York. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A Town that Doesn't Want Its Prison to Close","description":"A drop in crime and fewer inmates means Lyon Mountain, New York, is about to lose its prison, the main employer in a town of 400","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/X3EfQsz3/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2010-11-15T22:34:02.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/X3EfQsz3.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/X3EfQsz3/","duration":"PT6M59S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/X3EfQsz3/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```