Too much space in NY's prisons
The Finger Lakes Residential Center in Lansing can hold 135 youths but as of Thursday had just 51. Credit: Democrat and Chronicle
In his State of the State address, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo earned an ovation by denouncing the notion that juvenile incarceration should be seen as a jobs program.
The new governor was referring to a system that is notoriously broken, but whose 23 residential facilities provide precious employment in economically depressed upstate communities. Kudos to the governor for addressing this issue with such passion.
But the juvenile system is in some respects just a microcosm of New York's much larger network of adult penal institutions.
Both are linchpins of the upstate economy. Both confine more people than they should. Both have a lot of empty beds. Both are filled with downstate residents imprisoned far from loved ones who might visit. And both have too many costly facilities that the state can ill afford.
The difference is that, while the governor spoke with fervor about the juvenile system, he said nothing specifically about New York's vast adult system - in which closings are likely to be much more contentious. The juvenile system houses a mere 650 (another 550 live in non-prison residences), but New York has more than 56,000 grown-ups behind bars.
That's down from 71,500 in 1999, and unless you happen to be a prison guard, this is great news. It reflects falling crime and more enlightened sentencing, and it's a chance to save an enormous amount of money at a time when the state faces a projected deficit of roughly $9.3 billion.
Besides, locking people up has never been more than a necessary evil and, like all evils, the less of it the better. Sadly, America is far and away the world leader in incarceration, mostly as a response to violent crime in the late 1970s.
Crime has since plummeted, and New York now has a golden opportunity to further reduce the number of people we put behind bars. Best of all, that can be done without endangering law-abiding citizens.
For moral as well as practical reasons, therefore, the time has come for New York to close unneeded prisons - and to reduce the inmate population by minimizing imprisonment for nonviolent law-breaking.
It's worth stating explicitly here that straightening out the state's prison system doesn't mean going soft on crime. But crime hasn't increased as the inmate population has fallen. And incarcerating nonviolent offenders among hardened felons - at great expense - can backfire by producing even more hardened criminals. Maintaining empty prisons, meanwhile, makes no sense at all.
New York's juvenile incarceration system is a glaring example of so much that is wrong with public policy in this state. A series of damning official reports from state and federal officials and nonprofit groups has pointed to the system's shortcomings, including the use of excessive force by guards.
Half of the young people behind bars in this state weren't locked up for a violent offense, and so perhaps shouldn't even be there. Nor are inmates getting the psychological, substance-abuse or educational services they need. That may help explain why three-quarters of those released are arrested again within three years.
On top of everything else, the system is obscenely expensive, costing taxpayers an estimated $210,000 to hold one young person for one year - roughly the all-inclusive cost of four years at Harvard without financial aid.
New York has made a start on improvement, and the 400 empty beds in the system show that the numbers are going in the right direction. Excess capacity remains at such facilities as the Finger Lakes Residential Center in Lansing, but we need to go much further than just closing unneeded facilities.
New York should follow the lead of Missouri, an enlightened state in this arena, by transforming its far-flung juvenile penal system into a network of smaller facilities closer to home. Incarceration should be reserved only for those dangerous to themselves or others. If we take this path, our troubled youth will be better off. Our citizens will be safer. And the state's budget will be healthier.
Politically, the state's adult prison system will be harder to shrink, even though it contains something like 8,000 empty beds. Prison closings are hotly contested because so many jobs are at stake - jobs beloved of upstate legislators whose constituents have few employment options. These jobs are also defended by unions representing most of the state's nearly 30,000 prison workers - unions whose opposition has helped thwart previous closing campaigns.
Yet if we can't get rid of unneeded prisons - and guards who have little or nothing to do - then how on Earth will we make the much harder cuts in health care, education and other areas that will be required to get the state's finances back in order?
The Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit organization advocating less incarceration, figures the state could close or shrink eight to 10 of its 67 correctional facilities, saving $220 million in the first year alone.
Cuomo was right. Juvenile incarceration is no substitute for an upstate jobs program. But neither is locking up grown-ups. hN
