On the cellblocks, it is a foregone conclusion that the disciplinary system is rigged.  The uniformed staff is given almost total control over the process. Corrections officers make the charges — issuing “tickets,” in prison parlance — and hearing officers, typically sergeants, lieutenants or captains, determine guilt and decide punishment. Inmates almost always lose. At disciplinary hearings, inmates won only about 4 percent of the cases in 2015, according to the department.  The Times analyzed 59,354 disciplinary cases from last year. Systemwide, black inmates were 30 percent more likely to get a disciplinary ticket than white inmates. And they were 65 percent more likely to be sent to solitary confinement, where they are held in a cell 23 hours a day.  Last year, black inmates got 1,144 tickets that resulted in 180 or more days in isolation; white inmates received 226 tickets that had similarly long sentences.  Department officials said there were marked improvements in the past few years, thanks to a settlement the state had signed with the New York Civil Liberties Union that brought in a federal expert to oversee efforts aimed at reducing the use of solitary confinement. Between April 2014 and October of this year, the share of solitary prisoners who were African-American had decreased to 57 percent, from 64 percent, said Mr. Mailey, the department spokesman.  Taylor Pendergrass, the lead New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer in the settlement, said the department was “off to an encouraging start.”  “It will be a major undertaking to unwind decades-long practices and transform the culture of this large organization all the way down to the staff working in the cellblocks,” Mr. Pendergrass said.  There has been resistance from the rank and file. In a statement, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents guards, said the settlement with the civil liberties union had made the prisons more dangerous.  “The disciplinary system has been weakened in our prisons,” the association said. “Especially given the heavy gang presence and overwhelming increases in violent incidents, appropriate disciplinary measures are needed to maintain order and to protect other inmates, as well as staff.”  Solitary confinement is only one piece of the disciplinary process that had a disparity, The Times found, and it is unclear whether the settlement will affect other elements of the system.  Some of the starkest evidence of bias involves infractions that are vaguely defined and give officers the greatest discretion. Disobeying a direct order by an officer can be as minor as moving too slowly when a guard yells, “Get out of the shower.” It is one of the most subjective prison offenses. For every 100 black prisoners, guards issued 56 violations for disobeying orders, compared with 32 for every 100 whites, according to the analysis.  For smoking and drug offenses, which require physical evidence, white inmates, who make up about a quarter of the prison population, were issued about a third of the tickets.  In New York State prisons last year, black inmates were disciplined at a higher rate for violating prison rules, and they were punished more harshly than whites. State officials said reforms they put in place as a result of a lawsuit settlement reduced the disparity in solitary confinement, but it is unclear how the changes will affect other aspects of the system.  INMATE POPULATION AND SHARE OF  Disobeying orders is the most common violation inmates are punished for in the state prison system. It also is one of the most subjective — officers do not need to produce physical evidence to give an inmate a disciplinary ticket. In prisons throughout the state, blacks are punished for disobeying orders disproportionately to their numbers. A rare exception is Sing Sing, one of the few prisons where black guards are in the majority.  WITH “DISOBEYING ORDERS” VIOLATION, 2015  INMATE POPULATION AND SHARE OF DISCIPLINARY PUNISHMENTS, 2015  of longer than 180 days  Disobeying orders is the most common violation inmates are punished for in the state prison system. It also is one of the most subjective — officers do not need to produce physical evidence to give an inmate a disciplinary ticket. In prisons throughout the state, blacks are punished for disobeying orders disproportionately to their numbers. A rare exception is Sing Sing, one of the few prisons where black guards are in the majority.  INMATES CHARGED WITH “DISOBEYING ORDERS” VIOLATION, 2015  Inmates have the right to appeal to an outside court and be represented by a lawyer — if they can find one willing to take their case; they almost never do. Of the tens of thousands of inmates who got disciplinary tickets in 2014 and 2015, about 280 were represented by Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, which is financed by the state. If an inmate is lucky enough to have Prisoners’ Legal Services take his case, his odds improve greatly. About two-thirds of the organization’s clients won their appeals — but by then, many had completed their solitary sentence.  Ibrahim Gyang said in an interview that at one of his disciplinary hearings, an officer called as a witness had to reread the ticket because he could not remember the case. And Mr. Gyang still lost.  It is not just that blacks fare worse: Whites are more likely to get a break. Both white and black prisoners mention the escape of two murderers from Clinton last year as a prime example of white guards’ tendency to be more trustful of white inmates.  The murderers, Richard W. Matt and David Sweat, both white, got the tools they needed to cut through walls and piping because of friendships they had developed with an officer and a civilian employee, both white. “A major reason for allowing those inmates to have the latitude that they had was because they had white privilege,” said Joseph Williams, who worked for the corrections department for 47 years and was one of its few black prison superintendents. “We know if he had been black he would have never been given that wide a latitude.”  Markus Barber, a black inmate at Green Haven Correctional Facility, called it “the complexion for the connection.”  On Oct. 23, 2014, at Clinton, John Richard was stopped by Officer Brian Poupore, who took issue with his tinted glasses even though he has vision problems and had a medical permit to wear them, according to department records.  “Monkeys don’t wear glasses,” a sergeant said, according to Mr. Richard, who is serving a life sentence for murder.  When Mr. Richard refused to remove them, he said, Officer Poupore and several other guards jumped him. In their internal reports, the officers said Mr. Richard punched them several times and had to be subdued. After the encounter, Officer Poupore had a minor injury, according to the medical report, while the other officers had none.  The medical report said Mr. Richard had bruises all over his body, including his face, under his ear and on his back. He had trouble walking, the report said. His glasses were broken.  He was found guilty of assault and spent the next six months in solitary confinement.  Assault on prison workers may seem like a straightforward infraction, but a closer look reveals a disturbing pattern. There were 1,028 such violations issued in the state system last year. Black men received 61 percent of them, while white men received 9 percent. Under department rules, officers have considerable leeway over what constitutes an assault. An inmate need not cause an injury or even touch an officer.  About 20,000 uniformed officers work in the state’s prisons. During the first half of the year, 2,007 of them were involved in assault cases, according to department data, but 98 percent of them had no injuries or only minor ones, which can be as vague as “aches/pain.” Eight officers suffered serious injuries, defined as a broken bone or a puncture wound.  The Times reviewed 215 reports of assaults on staff from the first quarter of 2015, obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request. The department redacted the officers’ names but not the inmates’. It also redacted most information about injuries, but in several cases, The Times was able to obtain medical records through the prisoners.  Among those reports, the cases of three black inmates — Darius Horton, Paul Sellers and Justin Shaw — followed the same pattern: All were involved in seemingly trivial disagreements with guards that led to minor altercations. And while it is hard to know who was responsible for escalating the episodes, the officers were not injured and remained on duty, while the inmates were punished with long stints in isolation.  Mr. Sellers was returning from dinner at Five Points Correctional Facility when he was stopped by an officer for taking “a loaf of state bread” back to his cell, according to the guard’s report. “Surrender the bread,” the officer ordered. Mr. Sellers refused and grabbed the shirt of the officer, who punched him in the face. He was sent to solitary for 166 days.  Mr. Shaw was stopped at Washington Correctional Facility because he was “attempting to conceal contraband,” according to the officer’s report. When challenged, “the inmate produced a stack of waffles,” the report said. Mr. Shaw was accused of then grabbing the officer’s arm and given a 180-day lockup.  Mr. Horton was caught by Officer Michael Stamp at Groveland carrying a bowl of hot water from the microwave for coffee after the common room had closed. The officer ordered Mr. Horton to leave it, he refused and they got into a shouting match and bumped shoulders, according to the report. The guard claimed that Mr. Horton then punched him. In an interview, Mr. Horton denied this, saying he was jumped by Officer Stamp and six other guards. Two of the officers had minor injuries; the other five were unharmed. Mr. Horton was sentenced to 270 days in isolation.  How much race figured in these three encounters — if it did at all — is hard to know. The guard in Mr. Sellers’s case was Hispanic; in the other two cases, the guards were white. Mr. Shaw said the officer might have just been having a bad day. “I don’t like to say everything is race,” he said.  For Mr. Horton, there was no doubt that race was at play when, as he told it, he was handcuffed and beaten by seven officers, all of them white.  “They took me out there and beat me like I got caught drinking at the whites-only fountain,” he said.  The corrections officers’ union encourages members to report even the slightest physical contact as an assault. As the union negotiates a new contract, billboards in the Albany area have shown officers with neck braces, strapped to stretchers. Assaults on staff members have increased in recent years. There were 895 cases recorded in 2015, some involving more than one inmate, compared with 577 in 2010, according to department data. More recently, assaults on staff were down by 16 percent between January and October of this year, compared with the same period last year, the department said.  Union officials did not comment on the racial disparities in discipline that The Times found.  “While facing record high levels of violence and one of the most dangerous work environments in the country, corrections officers conduct themselves with professionalism and integrity to keep our prisons secure and our communities safe,” the union said in a statement.
A New York Times investigation draws on nearly 60,000 disciplinary cases from state prisons and interviews with inmates to explore the system’s inequities and the ripple effect they can have.