Pubdate: Fri, 02 Feb 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
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Author: David Rohde
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws)

AFTER LONG CLIMB, PRISON POPULATION FALLS IN NEW YORK

The number of state prisoners in New York is declining 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. "There is a possibility that things 
are going to change."

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 yesterday, 
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 Rockefeller-era 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 Mr. 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. "It's what the governor intended to happen," said Jim Flateau, a 
spokesman for the corrections department.

Prisoners' rights advocates praised the more lenient treatment of 
nonviolent offenders, but argued that crime trends in New York City have 
more to do with the drop in the number of felons than the governor's 
policies do. "You have more misdemeanors and a decline in felony arrests," 
said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of 
New York, a watchdog group. "There is less fodder for the mill that is 
going to increase inmates going into the system." People convicted of 
misdemeanors are sentenced to less than a year in local jails, while people 
convicted of felonies are sentenced to a year or more in state prison.

New York's state prisons have long been chronically overcrowded, with the 
number of inmates rising from 13,000 in 1973, when the Rockefeller-era drug 
laws were enacted, to more than 70,000 today. Pataki administration 
officials credit their initiatives for the change in course.

In 1996, for example, the state opened the Willard drug treatment facility, 
where it runs a program for 850 nonviolent drug offenders that combines 
counseling and a military boot camp-like setting. Nonviolent felons who 
complete Willard's 90-day program are released on parole and avoid spending 
a year in prison.

Governor Pataki also expanded traditional boot-camp incarceration programs 
created by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. Nonviolent offenders who complete those 
programs become eligible for early parole release. The Pataki 
administration also backed a merit-time program that allows nonviolent 
offenders who earn a high school diploma or get vocational training in 
prison to be considered for early parole.

Katherine N. Lapp, the governor's criminal justice coordinator, said those 
three programs had resulted in the early release of nearly 37,000 
nonviolent prisoners since 1995. She said that if the nonviolent offenders 
had served out their terms, the system would have needed more beds.

Mr. 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. As the population continues to decline, the hiring 
freeze could be expanded to other prisons.

While the state is cutting beds in medium-security prisons, it is 
increasing its maximum-security capacity. Despite the sharp drop in violent 
crime in the state, there has been a 9 percent rise in the number of 
violent offenders in prison between 1994 and 2000. Parole officials say 
more violent felons are being denied parole by the State Parole Board, 
whose members are appointed by the governor. 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.

In other states, a variety of factors are driving the slowdown in 
population growth. In Texas, which has the country's largest state prison 
system, the number of inmates has remained stable for the last five months, 
according to Tony Fabelo, executive director of the state's Criminal 
Justice Policy Council. Mr. Fabel said an increase in the number of 
prisoners granted parole was fueling the trend.

In California, an increase in drug-treatment beds from 400 in 1997 to 8,000 
this fiscal year has helped drive down recidivism, according to Russ 
Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. While 
other factors may increase the number of inmates, he said, the passage last 
fall of Proposition 36, a ballot initiative that requires drug treatment 
for nonviolent offenders, may help drive it down.

In Pennsylvania, an increase in the number of halfway houses where 
offenders can be paroled is decreasing the prison population. Michael 
Lukens, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said the 
agency anticipated an increase of only 234 prisoners per year through 2006.

But in other large states, the prison population is growing. Sergio Molina, 
a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, said that the 
number of adult male inmates in the state had stabilized. But an increase 
in female and juvenile offenders caused the population to surge from 40,700 
in 1998 to 45,275 this year.

In Florida, the prison population continues to grow, from 68,599 in 1999 to 
71,233 last year, said Debbie Buchanan, a spokeswoman for the Florida 
Department of Corrections. She said laws enacted by the Florida Legislature 
in the mid-1990's requiring all defendants to serve at least two-thirds of 
their sentences had decreased release rates.

Ms. Lapp said that New York was a national leader. "All the indicators are 
going in the right direction," she said. "This governor knew how to keep 
violent offenders off the streets and knows how to treat nonviolent offenders."

But Mr. Gangi said Mr. Pataki had been slow to enact many reforms. The 
state's maximum-security prisons remain overcrowded and dangerous, he said, 
and the State Parole Board is being too restrictive on granting parole to 
violent felons. He called Mr. Pataki's recent proposed reforms of the 
Rockefeller-era drug laws promising, but said that effort should be expanded.

"The key thing that would have an impact would be revising the sentencing 
laws" to give judges more latitude, he said. "If judges get the power back, 
they would divert thousands of people into programs instead of prison."
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