In response to overcrowding and poor living conditions, a group of people incarcerated at the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Western New York, began an uprising on September 9, 1971. After the group gained control of portions of the facility, negotiations began with prison officials. A committee of observers including politicians and journalists was formed to oversee the talks.

When negotiations broke down, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered Attica to be taken by force. On the morning of September 13, tear gas was dropped over the prison and state troopers opened fired on a group of over 1,200 imprisoned people. In the chaos, 10 hostages and 29 incarcerated people were killed by police gunfire. Another 80 were seriously wounded, the majority of whom were people imprisoned at Attica.

Assertions of police brutality followed, and some imprisoned people said they were denied medical care for hours afterward. An investigation into the Attica uprising resulted in indictments of over 60 incarcerated people, with eight eventually convicted of various charges. One prison guard was charged with reckless endangerment, but his case was later dropped. A class-action suit filed in the 1970s on behalf of over 1,200 people imprisoned at Attica was settled in 2000 when a federal judge ordered New York State to pay $8 million to survivors. In 2005, the state also agreed to pay $12 million to the survivors and families of employees killed at Attica.