ALBANY — The commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision on Monday declared an end to the strike that had hobbled New York’s prisons for 22 days and said more than 2,000 correction officers who refused to return to duty will be fired.
The announcement came as state officials said thousands of New York National Guard troops will continue to be deployed in the facilities to augment security and operations as an aggressive campaign to hire new officers is launched.
Thousands of other striking correction officers met Monday’s state-imposed deadline to return to work or face termination and the loss of their health care coverage. The return of those roughly 5,000 officers put the state’s correctional workforce at about 10,000, which includes sergeants but is still a few thousand short of the staffing levels in place before the strike began on Feb. 17…