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May 16, 2007
"Impacts of Jail Expansion in New York State: A Hidden Burden"
"Impacts of Jail Expansion in New York State: A Hidden Burden" by Dana Kaplan, Center for Constitutional Rights. May 2007
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/CCR_NYS_Jail_Report.pdf
An excellent, comprehensive report with includes important race-based analysis and recommendations to alternatives to jail building includes findings that that:
Between 1999 and 2006, the New York state prison population had dropped from 71,000 to 62,928 people, a decrease of 8 percent in less than a decade. Despite the decrease in the prison population, the combined capacity of jails in upstate and suburban New York increased by 20.
Jail construction has cost counties an estimated $1 billion, raising local property taxes in some instances as much as 40 percent and diverting money away from social services.
The growth in the number of people incarcerated in jails has not been caused by an increase in crime or by an increase in population-rather, it has been caused by the expansion mandates issued by the SCOC and new arrest and detention policies, including arrest policies for low-level offenses and misdemeanors; a rising number of mentally ill people in jail; system inefficiencies; and the use of local jails to hold those detained by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Posted by lois at May 16, 2007 09:58 PM