Attica Correctional Facility

Riots

Notable inmates

• David Berkowitz, better known as Son of Sam, serial killer who confessed to killing six people and wounding several others in New York City during the late 1970s. Since becoming a Christian, Berkowitz has stated he does not want to be paroled and should pay for the sins he has committed. Berkowitz is now housed at Shawangunk Correctional Facility.
• H. Rap Brown, Black Panther Party leader, served a sentence in Attica from 1971 to 1976.
• Jimmy Caci, a captain in the Los Angeles crime family spent eight years in Attica during the 1970s for armed robbery.
• Mark David Chapman, who pleaded guilty to murdering John Lennon in 1980. Chapman was sentenced to 20 years-to-life and has been denied parole ten times amid campaigns against his release. Chapman is now housed at Wende Correctional Facility.
• Joseph Christopher, American serial killer who gained infamy for a series of murders in the early 1980s in Buffalo, Manhattan, and Rochester. Housed in Attica in 1985. He died in March 1993.
• Edward Cummiskey, Westies hitman during the 1970s.
• Valentino Dixon was found to be innocent and was released in 2018, after 27 years of incarceration, when another man confessed to the murder of which Dixon was convicted.
• Dean Faiello, unlicensed physician who was charged in the manslaughter of Filipina-American banker Maria Cruz in 2003.
• Colin Ferguson, who murdered six people on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993. Ferguson was sentenced to multiple life sentences. Ferguson is now housed at Upstate Correctional Facility.
• Kendall Francois, who murdered eight women and stored their bodies in his home in Poughkeepsie, New York. Francois, who was serving a life sentence without parole, died in September 2014.
• Frank P. Giffune, the Italian mob "fall guy" was sent to Attica in 1940 and sentenced to 12–25 years for grand larceny.
• Sam Melville, notorious as "mad bomber" in 1960s, a Weather Underground member killed by New York State Police troopers during the Attica Prison riot of September 13, 1971.
• El Sayyid Nosair, 1993 World Trade Center bombing terrorist was housed in Attica for a short duration related to a different assassination.
• Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, convicted murderer who led one of the largest manhunts in New York state history.
• Joseph 'Mad Dog' Sullivan, the only man who has ever escaped the prison.
• Joel Rifkin, serial killer, spent more than four years in solitary confinement before being transferred to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Clinton County.
• Willie Sutton, who robbed 100 banks from the late 1920s to 1952.
• David Sweat, who killed a Broome County deputy sheriff in 2002 and escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015 was rehoused in Attica in 2017.