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Archives

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Archives

About the Archives


The Department of Correction and its employees have published numerous periodicals throughout the more than a century of operations as a separate agency. The publications have had various names and formats but their content reveals a continuity of concerns even as technology and methodology changed. This "Archives" section features articles from those publications.

On Guard

Back when male officers were called Keepers and their female colleagues were called Matrons, their publication took the form of a magazine named On Guard.

Published monthly in the 1930s by the Prison Keepers Council of the New York City Department of Correction, On Guard proclaimed itself "The Only Mazazine in America by Prison Keepers for Prison Keepers." It featured reports from the Penitentiary and Workhouse on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island), Harts Island, City Prison, Rikers Island, Hampton Farms, and Greycourt.


Correction Sidelights

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the name of the "Official Publication of the Department of Correction" was Correction Sidelights.

Among the historic items reported in its pages was the closing of the Raymond Street Jail in Brooklyn featuring the front page photo of Commissioner Anna Kross symbolically waving goodbye to it from the opposite street corner.

Often Commissioner Kross' "column" was the lead-off article in the Correction Sidelights issues throughout the years of Mayor Robert Wagner's administration. In Mayor John V. Lindsay's administration the publication name remained the same but matured from a newsletter look to a magazine layout. One of its major stories during his administration was the opening of the Rikers Island Bridge.


Correction News

During the administrations of Mayors Edward Koch and David Dinkins, and part of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration, the periodical was entitled Correction News but the format varied from tabloid newspaper to newsletter layout.

Initially much of the publication was put together and printed outside the Department but later more and more of the production was done within the agency.


On the Gate

In late 1995, Correction News was succeeded by On the Gate, produced entirely within the Department using digital technology and moving away from a newsletter look to a magazine format.

The editor of On the Gate also edits DOC's Web pages: Thomas C. McCarthy, Director of Editorial and Commincation Services.

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-- Thomas McCarthy, NYCHS webmaster