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| After long climb, prison population declines in New York |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 03/12/2001 |
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The number of state prisoners in New York has declined for the first time in 27 years, according to officials of the State Department of Correctional Services. While advocates for prisoners' rights say plummeting crime rates have played a role in the decline, which is expected to continue, officials in the Pataki administration attributed the trend to new policies that grant early release to more nonviolent felons. Whatever the reason, New York is not alone. State corrections officials in California, Texas and Pennsylvania all report that their prison populations have remained roughly flat over the last year, after years of steady increases. 'This appears to be more than a blip,' said Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based research group that opposes mandatory sentences. The decline in New York so far is small, with the state's prison population dropping from 71,750 inmates on Feb. 1, 2000, to 70,283 inmates , a decrease of 2 percent. But state corrections officials project that the prison population will drop to roughly 65,200 in 2002, a 9 percent decrease over two years. If Gov. George E. Pataki and legislative leaders agree this year on overhauling the state's drug laws, which require long sentences for nonviolent drug-related crimes, they say the prison population could shrink even more. Critics have said that lengthy mandatory sentences and tight parole had inflated the prison population despite decreases in crime. Aides to Pataki give his policies credit for producing the decline, which they estimate will save the state $50 million in prison costs next year. In a process the Pataki administration calls right-sizing, defendants convicted of violent crimes are receiving longer sentences and being denied parole. People convicted of nonviolent offenses, meanwhile, are being given shorter terms and receiving more lenient treatment from the State Parole Board. Flateau said the $50 million in savings would come from phasing out 2,423 beds in 14 medium-security prisons where inmates are now double-bunked. The positions of 600 corrections employees at those 14 prisons would be eliminated through a hiring freeze, voluntary transfers and attrition, he said. While the state is cutting beds in medium-security prisons, it is increasing its maximum-security capacity. Over the last several years, the state has built two new maximum-security prisons with 1,500 beds each. Two thousand maximum-security beds were added to other facilities. |
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