The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The disclosure of this exorbitant budget marks a snag in the fast tracking of the county's largest construction project ever. With minimal public input, Suffolk has embarked on a journey all too common for localities both statewide and nationally. Given the stakes, Suffolk legislators and the county executive have an opportunity to demonstrate leadership by standing up to state mandates and rethinking the project.

Overcrowded jails and the larger, more expensive jails that replace them are symptoms of a failing criminal-justice system that needs to be re-examined. Although statistics show that incarceration is the most ineffective, expensive, inhumane feature of the criminal-justice system, it is constantly being expanded and over-funded. With almost 5 percent of the world's population and a quarter of the world's prisoners, the United States has eclipsed both China and Russia in its rate of incarceration.

The national average of inmates who return to jail is 70 percent. Furthermore, studies like those recently done through the American Bar Association confirm what members of the black and Latino communities have long maintained - prison and jail unduly and disproportionately affect communities of color. Considering these realities, incarceration is perhaps the only public project given unlimited resources despite decades of consistently horrible performance.

Crime rates and the prison population have been dropping in the past decade, but during this period an alarming trend has developed on the county level. Showing a stark disconnect from reality, the state has mandated jail expansion in 36 counties since 1995. Suffolk's proposed 1,280-bed facility is by far the largest jail the state has mandated in recent memory. The planned facility has truly earned the title "Super Jail," with approximately three times the cells of the next largest proposed jail in Dutchess County.

Though counties like Suffolk have genuine issues with overcrowding, the State Commission of Corrections displayed unprecedented authority by not only identifying the problem but also ordering the solution. In December of 2002 the Commission of Corrections dictated that Suffolk build a 1,200-bed jail facility by 2007 to remedy overcrowding. This mandate was issued with no basis in facts or research, and created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today, after hundreds of thousands of dollars in research, consulting, and planning, the proposed facility looks exactly like the state's original prescription.

Such state micromanagement stymies innovative reforms like those recently applied in Macomb County, Mich., where nonviolent mentally ill inmates are removed from jail and given specific treatment. Other examples of non-construction solutions to jail overcrowding include the full-system overhaul conducted in Monroe County, N.Y. Officials in Monroe implemented balanced reforms from arrest to sentencing that alleviated jail overcrowding while preserving public safety. The sentencing of those caught driving with suspended licenses to community service, rather than jail, is another sensible reform.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and local legislators have a duty to be responsive to their constituents, not the Commission of Corrections. This Albany-based board of unelected appointees may be over-reaching its mandate in the first place. Dutchess County Executive William R. Steinhaus recently vetoed his legislature's efforts to fund a mandated jail. Alternatively, Suffolk County should follow the lead of Tompkins County, which in early December dropped construction plans altogether in defiance of the Commission of Corrections. Although its project is dwarfed by Suffolk's, Tompkins officials set a precedent, proving that the Commission of Corrections' directives are not sacrosanct.

If Suffolk legislators continue to ignore pleas from their constituents, we only need to visit our neighbors upstate in Ulster County to see the future. Ulster capitulated to the state's mandates and is managing a partially completed facility that is millions of dollars over budget and a year off schedule.

It is incumbent on county government to act decisively and defiantly against state mandates through aggressive and innovative responses to jail overcrowding. Suffolk officials should work with other counties to promote local solutions over state meddling. If the county executive and legislature do not seize this opportunity, they will also be to blame.

Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpmit244155865feb24,0,1937273.story?c
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