The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Prosecutors who rightly viewed the laws as impractical and unfair began to get around them by never bringing novice offenders to trial at all, instead diverting them to drug treatment and other rehabilitation programs. The Pataki administration has also developed forward-looking programs in prisons and has begun to stress post-prison strategies that help people who get out of jail to actually stay out.

Gov. George E. Pataki took credit for this shift in his State of the State address. He told his listeners that the prison population had dropped by about 8,000 people, or 11 percent of the total, over the last five years. But county officials and prison rights advocates noted a glaring discrepancy between the governor's sentiments and the actual behavior of the State Commission of Correction, an agency with great influence over prison policy in New York and one that the governor essentially controls.

Founded in the late 19th century to promote humane treatment at state prisons, the commission has historically concerned itself with training and administrative issues. But recently it has been pressing counties around the state to build new local jails.

A recent study released by a watchdog group, the New York State Network for Jail Alternatives and Safer Communities, asserts that since 1995, 36 of New York's counties have built, are constructing or are considering new jails - thanks partly to pressure from the state.

This has made several counties unhappy. They do not believe they should be asked to build new jails while the prison population is declining. On Long Island, Suffolk County has recently sued the commission, accusing it of arbitrary and capricious enforcement of state law in a dispute over jail expansion. Tompkins County refused to expand its jail in a manner suggested by the state, and other counties are poised to follow suit.

The counties argue further that they should not be spending millions of dollars on jails at a time when the country as a whole is moving away from mass incarceration and toward rehabilitation, job training and other forms of nonjail approaches. Their complaints make sense; local jail populations are often made up mainly of mentally ill persons and other low-level offenders who would not be in jail at all if they could afford bail. Some critics of the building plan fear that the state is preparing to shift responsibility for incarceration to the local level.

Finally, the counties argue that state officials who got into the prison business in the post-Rockefeller years may be assuming that jail and prison populations can only go up, when in fact, as Mr. Pataki himself noted, they can go down as well.

The state should take these criticisms seriously. It should also make sure that it is not pressing the counties to build massive new jails that local sheriffs will then feel compelled to keep full.

Mr. Pataki should use his influence to straighten out this dispute. He should also make sure that the counties understand and have access to the methods that have successfully reduced the state prison population.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/opinion/opinionspecial/LI_boondoggle.html?
ex=1108184400&en=0aa38c517567c462&ei=5070

NY Times Opinion > N.Y. Region Opinions