Impacts of Jail Expansion in
New York State: A Hidden Burden
By Dana Kaplan
May 2007
Research Assistants: Brenden Beck and Nicholas Kapustinsky 

Author: Dana Kaplan is an Open Society Institute Soros Justice Fellow at the Center for
Constitutional Rights, examining the issue of jail expansion on a national level. From this
work she has produced the web site www.ccr-ny.org/cajeproject, as well as partnered with
communities and government across the country to work towards alternatives to jail
construction.

Acknowledgments: This report was completed with the invaluable research assistance of
Brenden Beck and Nicholas Kapustinsky, interns from the Bard College Globalization and International Affairs Program. Thanks also to Tracy Huling, Craig Gilmore, and Kevin Pranis, who
provided critical feedback on early drafts of this report.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational organization
dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Center for Constitutional Rights
666 Broadway
New York, NY 10012
www.ccr-ny.org/cajeproject
dkaplan@ccr-ny.org
212.614.6464

Executive Summary
There has been dramatic growth in the number of people held in local jails in New York State in the last decade, with the total capacity of jails in upstate New York and Long Island increasing by 20 percent, to a total of 19,984 beds in 2006. By the close of 2007, over 30 counties in New York State will have built some
6,000 new jail beds, 2,976 of which are currently either under construction or are in the planning stages.
This construction has come at tremendous cost to the taxpayers of New York – an estimated $1 billion
according to the New York State Association of Counties. In many counties, these projects have been the
largest locally financed capital project in the history of the county. It has also occurred at the same time as
the population of people held in state prisons has continued to fall.
The growth in the number of people held in jail has not been caused by an increase in crime, as index crime
reports decreased by 30 percent in the last decade in upstate and suburban New York overall. It has also
not been caused by an increase in the base population, which increased by just 2.6 percent over this same
ten year time span.
One major factor in new jail construction has been the State Commission of Corrections, a state agency
appointed by the govenor that has been directly responsible for the size and scale of new jail construction
in New York State. Although providing no financial assistance to counties building new jails, the SCOC has
mandated the size and timeline of their construction and dealt financial penalties to counties who have
chosen to pursue alternatives to expansion instead or do not otherwise comply. County legislators across
the state have voiced frustration with the Commission, claiming that these are unfunded mandates and
that the agency is acting outside the scope of its regulatory authority. They maintain that the agency would
better serve the counties by examining why jail populations are increasing and act to address those factors
instead. Some of these factors include: arrest policies that cause more people to spend time in jail for
low-level offenses, a rising number of people being housed in jail who are mentally ill, system inefficiencies
that make it difficult for people to move rapidly through the justice system, local jails being used to hold
people detained by the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshal Service, and a lack of coordination between county and state corrections officials that leaves many people who have been sentenced to prison sitting in local jails.
The impacts of this jail expansion on New York State are significant. Economically, the cost of construction
is estimated at $1 billion, causing property taxes to increase and cutting into county expenditures in
other areas. Socially, the burden of new jail construction is disproportionately experienced by low-income
communities of color, who form a disproportionate percentage of people being held in local jails. This
disproportionate representation is due to racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice system, yet it
has long term consequences for individuals’ employment levels and economic success. Finally, new jail
construction poses a large environmental risk to upstate and suburban New York, with the United States
Environmental Protection Agency having identified correctional facilities as a large, but frequently overlooked, environmental issue.
Given that jail expansion has such a heavy impact on the communities and taxpayers of New York State,
all alternatives to expansion should be examined before any new construction takes place. To that end, the
report endorses the following recommendations:

•	The State Commission of Corrections should stop the practice of mandating the construction and size
of correctional facilities in New York State;

•	In place of mandates regarding new construction, New York State counties should begin

“evidence-based planning” regarding needs for local jail capacity, based on a real assessment
of why increasing numbers of people are in jail and issuing recommendations accordingly; and

•	New York State should institute contract controls to monitor how contracts are distributed
and their impacts on taxpayers.

The issue of jail expansion in New York has to date been underexamined, yet the impacts are significant
throughout the state. Failing to identify and address these impacts would be a considerable, and extremely
costly, mistake.



Population of People Held in State and Local Correctional Facilities, New York State

Change in New York State Prison Population over Time
Source: New York State Department of Correctional Services



Introduction:
Jail Expansion in Upstate and Suburban New York
Over the last few years in New York State, the shift in prison population trends has received a
notable amount of public attention from policymakers, the media, advocates, and community
members concerned with criminal justice issues. Since 1981, the state has added an
estimated 46,000 beds to its prison system, spending somewhere in excess of $4.5 billion
on construction costs.1 In 1995, the New York State Department of Correctional Services
held 64,486 people in custody, and the state prison population peaked at 71,000 people
in 1999. Yet by March 2006, the number had dropped to 62,928 people, an overall decline
of 8 percent in a period of just over a decade. There has not been a new prison constructed
in the state since 20002—in fact, near the end of his term in office, former Governor Pataki
had suggested closing state prisons to save money and to accommodate the smaller prison
population, an action unprecedented in New York State history. In February 2007, Governor
Spitzer also announced plans to form a commission that was specifically tasked with
developing recommendations for downsizing the state prison system.3 For the first time in two
decades, it appeared that New York State’s prison boom was beginning to slow significantly, if
not reverse direction.
What has received far less public attention is the dramatic growth in local jail populations and
the expansion of jail facilities throughout the state over the past decade. While prisons are
state facilities that hold people who have been convicted of crimes, jails are local facilities
that serve three functions: to hold people who are awaiting trial and who have not been
convicted of a crime; to hold people who are serving short sentences for relatively minor
offenses, usually less than a year; and, increasingly, to hold prisoners for other jurisdictions
– usually state, federal, or immigration detainees – when jail space is rented out. Unlike
prisons, jails are locally operated and locally financed, meaning that the counties in which
they are housed bear both the responsibility and the cost of their operation.
The combined capacity of jails in upstate New York and Long Island increased by 20 percent
in just over a decade to a total of 19,984 beds in 2006. By the close of 2007, over 30
counties in New York State will have built some 6,000 new jail beds, 2,976 of which are
either currently under construction or in the planning stages. This construction has come at
tremendous cost to the taxpayers of New York – an estimated $1 billion according to the New
York State Association of Counties.4 In many counties, these projects have been the largest
locally financed capital project in the history of the county.
For the purposes of this report, all New York State calculations, unless indicated otherwise,
represent upstate New York and Long Island. New York City has been excluded, both because
the trend in New York City is distinctly different than the rest of the state, and because the
large size of its population would skew statewide calculations heavily.
This growth is not distinct from national trends, which indicate that since 1995, the nation’s
jail population on a per capita basis has increased by 31 percent.5 The rapid expansion of
local jails is a national issue to consider.



Source: New York State Criminal Justice 2006 Crimestat Report, Division of Criminal Justice Services: Albany, NY, February 8,
2007. Full report available on the web: http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/pio/annualreport/2006crimestatreport2-9-07.pdf



Explanation:
What Is Causing the Growth of New York State Jails?
Most people assume that jail populations increase when crime is on the rise and that they
drop when crime is down. This pattern is visible in New York City, where the crime rate and
the jail population both fell dramatically over the past two decades. The city’s jails saw a
36 percent population reduction between the fiscal years 1991 and 2003 – from 21,500 to
13,750 people – while the crime rate decreased by 68 percent and the murder rate dropped
by 70 percent.6
But the pattern does not hold for the rest of the state, where jail populations rose at the
exact same time as crime rates fell dramatically—index crime reports decreased by 30
percent in the last decade in upstate and suburban New York overall, from 385,032 index
crimes reported in 1995 to 263,389 reported in 2005.7
A second “common sense” explanation for changes in local jail population is growth of the
base resident population, which can drive up demand for a wide range of services, including
local corrections. Yet the number of people who reside in upstate and suburban New York
increased by just 2.6 percent over this ten-year time span, while local jail populations grew by
20 percent overall.8
Given the lack of correlation between the rapid growth of local jails and the declining rate of
crime, as well as the relationship to growth in population, we must examine the factors that
are causing such a massive level of jail expansion throughout New York State. Although there
is no single explanation, there are a number of factors that each play a significant role.

State Mandates that Force Local Jail Construction
To understand one major such factor, one needs to examine the actions of the State
Commission of Corrections, a little-known state agency that in recent years has become a
major force in driving the expansion of local jails.
In 1973, Article 3 of New York State Correctional Law established the State Commission
of Corrections as an independent state agency within the Executive Branch with the power
to “close any correctional facility which is unsafe, unsanitary or inadequate…or which has
not adhered to or complied with rules or regulations” as well as to “approve or reject plans
and specifications for the construction and improvement of correctional facilities.”9 The
commission is comprised of three Commissioners appointed by the governor and a staff of
35. Historically, its activities have focused on directives such as regulating items of clothing
received by people in prisons and jails, overseeing conditions of confinement, and the training
of correctional officers.
In recent years the agency has emphasized another function—mandating the construction
of new jails or the expansion of existing facilities to a timetable and size determined by the
State. In 1993, the SCOC established the New Institutions Technical Assistance Program to
provide technical assistance to counties undergoing expansions. NITAP staff assess facility
transition efforts, review construction designs, and perform staffing analyses.10 The agency
also became much more hands-on in determining the size and timing of jail expansions
that counties would have to undertake in order to avoid state financial penalties. Since the
creation of this program, the SCOC has been responsible for mandating the size and timetable
of nearly every new jail project in New York State while providing no financial support or
alternative solutions to incarceration to local counties. The State Commission of Corrections
has thus had direct responsibility for the scale of new jail construction throughout New York.



The State Commission of Corrections’ involvement in county jail expansion occurs when it
determines that a local jail is operating at a greater capacity than it was designed to hold
or that the county will require increased jail space in the future and will therefore require
expansion. The SCOC has legal control of the classification system of county jails, meaning
that they can determine how many people can be held at a given facility at any time. While
double-bunking is standard practice in New York State prisons, counties must receive
approval from the SCOC to do so. This approval is granted in the form of “variances” that the
commission issues to a county to allow them to hold beyond their single-bunk cell capacity.
The SCOC has historically granted such variances for long periods while county officials
work to resolve local crowding problems. When the State Commission of Corrections “pulls”
the variances, counties must either pay legal penalties for holding more than their allotted
capacity or pay to house people at neighboring county jails. Thus, variances have become
a powerful tool that commissioners wield in their negotiations with counties over new jail
construction. Richard Carbery, former police chief of Onondaga County, observes that
when county officials find themselves in disagreement with the agency, “life suddenly gets
miserable.”11

What County Officials Across New York State Say
About the State Commission of Corrections
“I think the bottom line becomes the question: how can we afford not to? I really
feel like we’re being backed into a corner here [by the Commission of Corrections].”
—Brent Reynolds, Chairman of Public Safety Committee, R-Alfred, Allegany County 12

“We’re the ones in charge of the money raised from Tompkins County taxpayers.
They’re saying we have to build a jail to accommodate the number of prisoners they
think might be incarcerated 20 years from now. We think the number will be significantly less. Well, it’s our money, and how it gets spent is our call, not theirs.”
—Tim Joseph, Chairman of Tompkins County Legislature, D-Ithaca 13

“That sounds like a mandate to me. I’d like to know where he thinks we’re getting
the money. The State should pay it.”
—Supervisor Walt Rushby Junior, R-Moriah, Essex County on the State’s order
to build or expand jail facilities 14

“I think that it is unfortunate that we have come to this whole process. I think the
State of New York has put forth standards that don’t take into account the county’s
ability to pay and taxpayers’ ability to foot the bill also.”
—James Caflisch, County Legislator, R-District 21, Chatauqua County 15

“It’s either a lack of communication or lack of fiscal discipline. The point is, here’s
half a million dollars of taxpayer dollars being wasted.”
—Peter Kraft, County Legislator, D-District 3, Ulster County 16



CASE STUDY – TOMPKINS COUNTY
In 1998, Tompkins County began to study a possible expansion of
their 73-bed jail. In lieu of construction, the county decided to launch
a set of alternatives to incarceration programs. These programs,
including drug courts and a day reporting program, provided court
supervision and treatment to individuals while still allowing them to
reside in the community. They determined that the $1 million cost
to operate these programs would be far less than the cost of a new
facility. The State Commission of Corrections nonetheless began to pressure county leaders
to construct a new 160-bed facility.
Tompkins County officials were willing to accept a compromise and build a new 104-bed
jail with an internal structure, or “spine”, that would facilitate expansion to 196 beds if
necessary. Yet in a phone call with the county in February 2004, the commission told county
officials that the number of beds in the new plan was insufficient and that the county should
plan to build or renovate the jail to have no less than 160 beds. Despite the fact that in
2004 the average daily population in the existing Tompkins County jail was just 69 people,
the commission predicted a large increase in the number of people who would be in jail. They
gave reasons that included past incarceration statistics as well as any possible reforms to
the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which they asserted could swell local jail populations.17
The county, however, questioned the accuracy of the agency’s projections. In an 8-to-7 vote,
the Legislature ultimately decided that if the only choice were to build the number of beds
determined by the SCOC, they would pursue reforms and alternatives instead of building a
new jail. As stated by County Legislator Tim Joseph, “I had reconciled myself to a 104-bed
jail with the spine for 196 beds. The [County] Legislature as a whole agreed on that. They
[the commission] have eliminated that option. The option they offer us now is a very big jail or
nothing. Given that, the only reasonable choice is not to build at all.”18
The announcement that Tompkins County would not build a new jail was met by a punitive
response from the State Commission of Corrections, which announced that the county’s
variances would be pulled and that their jail classification system would be reordered to
allow an even smaller capacity, forcing a greater number of individuals to be boarded out.
Only after a state elected official intervened and a major New York State newspaper called
to ask the SCOC for their reasoning did the SCOC revoke their threat of a new classification
system. They did not, however, give Tompkins County back their variances, which were pulled
in December 2004.19

CASE STUDY – ULSTER COUNTY
The short jail construction timelines imposed on counties by the
State Commission of Corrections have also made the projects
particularly susceptible to both cost overruns and corruption. In
1999, the agency informed Ulster County officials that they had
to expand their existing jail facility. The county rushed to meet
the Commission’s mandate with little foresight and planning and
without having set up appropriate accountability mechanisms. The
new 277,000-square-foot facility was designed to hold 484 people as well as the sheriff’s
office with an original opening date of 2004. However, contract and construction problems
have plagued the facility and driven costs up far higher than initially projected and delayed
the opening by years. These problems have included: finding bedrock during ground breaking,
design and construction changes, leaks in the roofs and pipes that caused water damage,
mold, improperly installed windows, and a shortage of corrections officers that caused the



State Commission of Corrections to determine that the facility had inadequate staffing to
open. Three years after its initial planned opening date, the jail officially opened on February
17, 2007.20
The final price tag on the facility was $95.2 million, more than $20 million over the amount
it was initially projected to cost. In addition, during the several months that Ulster County
was required to have both the old and the new jails open, County Legislature Chairman David
Donaldson reported that they were “bleeding about $300,000 a month.”21
There remain two pending claims against the county from contractors on the jail – Bovis
Lend Lease, the project’s original manager, and Crandall Architect and Associates, Inc.,
the project’s architect. The county is in the midst of countersuits against both companies.
All parties are in disagreement over who is to blame for the cost overruns and who should
foot the bill. Ulster County has formed a special committee to investigate the planning and
construction of the facility in order to determine what went wrong with the project as well as
whether any criminal charges will be filed for possible corruption.22 As it stands, the jail is the
largest capital project in county history, and property taxes in Ulster County have increased by
40 percent. According to County Legislator Richard Parete, “It was a project that was doomed
to fail from day one.”23
Despite these widespread criticisms from across New York State, the State Commission of
Corrections continues to defend its jail expansion mandates, even while many county officials
have argued that such mandates are only justified when conditions fall to unconstitutional
levels. Further, they observe that the pressure placed on counties by the commission to build
large new jails distracts attention from the critical question of why these jails are filling while
crime rates fall.

Other Factors Contributing to Jail Population Growth
An examination of local and statewide trends can help to develop a more comprehensive
understanding of the other factors behind jail population growth in New York State. These
factors include:

Arrest policies causing more people to spend time in jail for low-level offenses
Crime is down throughout New York State, but arrest rates are up statewide, especially for
low-level offenses. This trend is driven in large part by a shift towards “quality of life” policing
practices that target low-level offenses and often criminalize behavior such as loud noise,
rowdy behavior, and hanging out on street corners or in other public places.
Many upstate and suburban counties have seen arrest rates rise despite drops in crime
rates. Others have seen arrest rates decline, but at a much slower pace than crime rates.
Some counties that have seen decreases in arrest rates – such as Nassau County and Albany
County – are, perhaps notably, not on the SCOC list of new jail expansion projects.
The large majority of these arrests are for low-level misdemeanor offenses. In Suffolk County,
for instance, 75 percent of those in the criminal justice system committed non-violent crimes,
and 35 percent are charged only with alcohol or drug-related charges.24

A rising number of people being held in jail who are mentally ill
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill and cutbacks in mental health services have
produced a startling rise in the number of mentally ill people behind bars. Many are
incarcerated for low-level misdemeanor offenses that are more symptomatic of mental illness



Arrest Rates and Crime Rates in Ten Most Populous
New York State Counties, 1995-2005
crime rate
down

arrest rate
up

crime rate
down

arrest rate
up

crime rate
down

arrest rate
down

crime rate
down

arrest rate
down

32%

9%

46%

18%

38%

15%

32%

21%

Suffolk County

Westchester County

crime rate
down

arrest rate
up

crime rate
down

arrest rate
up

crime rate
down

arrest rate
down

crime rate
down

arrest rate
down

23%

2%

47%

30%

31%

8%

31%

16%

Orange County

Nassau County

Rockland County

Erie County

crime rate
down

arrest rate
down

crime rate
down

21%

1%

23%

Albany County

Onondaga County

Monroe County

arrest rate
down

2%

Dutchess County

While crime rates take into account the population of the county, arrest rates are calculated as the percentage
change in the number of arrests. However, the population increase in Upstate New York during this same time
period of 1995-2005 was 2.6 percent, far less than the average increase in arrest rates themselves.

than criminal activity. Studies have estimated that on a national level, 16 percent of local
jail populations suffer from mental illness.25 These figures are reflected in New York State’s
jail population—in Suffolk County, one study estimated that annually, 10.4 percent of the
probation population, 7.7 percent of the pretrial population, 7.1 percent of parolees, and 16
percent of the jail population overall are individuals with mental illness.26
Research has also shown that a greater proportion of individuals with mental illness are
arrested compared to the general population, not because they are involved in more criminal
activity but because their mental illness makes them more susceptible to arrest—they are
frequently picked up and booked for actions that others are not arrested for. One study
demonstrated that people with mental illness have a 65 percent greater chance of being
arrested than those who are not mentally ill who are committing the same infraction.27

Inefficiencies keep people from moving rapidly through the criminal justice system
Across the state, a large majority of the people in jail are housed for low-level offenses, with
system inefficiencies causing them to sit behind bars for far longer than may be necessary.
These inefficiencies may include people’s inability to post bail or lack of adequate access to
legal counsel. Even spending one or two days in jail beyond what is necessary can take up
thousands of beds of jail space across the state.
On October 13, 2005, a fairly typical day in Dutchess County, 47 people in jail – or 13 percent



Chart of Completed and Current Projects 1995–2004,
Local Correctional Facility Development Projects
Completed Projects 1995 – 2004
Orange County Jail 	
Tioga County Jail		
Oneida County Jail	
Niagara County Jail	
Montgomery County 	
Broome County Jail	
Putnam County Jail	
Steuben County Jail	
Onondaga County	
Dutchess County		
Franklin County Jail	
Cayuga County Jail	
Cattaraugus Jail		
Monroe County Jail	
Ontario Jail 		
Washington Jail		
Warren Jail		
Westchester Co. Pen	

800 beds
98 beds
614 beds
224 beds
152 beds
400 beds
100 beds
149 beds
616 beds
100 beds
85 beds
120 beds
36 beds
400 beds
276 beds
150 beds
180 beds
436 beds

Total Completed Jail Beds: 4,936

Current Local Correctional
Facility Development Projects
Ulster County Jail	
Clinton County Jail	
Essex County Jail	
Erie County Pen.		
Chautauqua Co. Jail	
Allegany Co. Jail		
Delaware Co. Jail		
Chenango Co. Jail	
Seneca Co. Jail		
Herkimer Co. Jail		
St. Lawrence Co. Jail	
Putnam Co. Jail		
Steuben Co. Jail		
Sullivan Co. Jail		
Livingston Co. Jail	
Greene County Jail	
Suffolk County Jail	
Rensselaer Co. Jail	

400 beds
160 beds
120 beds
96 beds
116 beds
120 beds
100 beds
140 beds
130 beds
140 beds
160 beds
24 beds
100 beds
400 beds
106 beds
106 beds
1,200 beds
384 beds

Total Current Jail Bed Expansions Planned: 4,002

Total New Jail Beds, New York State: 8,938
Source: NYSAC News. New York State Association of Counties: Volume 27, Number 1, Winter 2006.

10

= number of beds, rounded
off to the nearest hundred

11

of the Dutchess County jail population – were being held on bail amounts that were less than
$2,500. Ten of these people were being held on bail amounts that were set at $500 or lower,
for offenses that included aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, possession
of minor amounts of a controlled substance, and criminal contempt.28 Sixty-five people were
being held in jail for disorderly conduct.29

Local jails are used increasingly to hold people detained by the Department of
Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
and the U.S. Marshal Service
The number of immigrants being held in detention centers across the country has risen
exponentially in recent years to approximately 235,000 in 2004, and local county jails have
responded by renting out their bed space to immigration authorities.30 Officials in several
counties that are under pressure from the State Commission of Corrections to build costly
new jails have looked to fill excess beds with people detained for immigration violations.
In fact, housing immigrants detained by ICE is a way that many counties are funding their
underused jail space. In Allegany County, officials are seeking to fund their jail through
immigration detention contracts. County Administrator John E. Margeson says that he hopes
“that we can house approximately 75 inmates per day from outside [our] jurisdiction, county
and federal. It’s our hope that the revenue will pay the debt service on the facility, which is
about $1.6 million a year.”31
Clinton County was also banking on receiving substantial ICE detention revenues when it
financed a large jail expansion in 2002. County legislators borrowed the largest sum in county
history to help build a $23 million state-mandated expansion that will nearly double the size of
the facility from 92 beds to more than 160. David Dimmit of the U.S. Marshals Service told a
crowd gathered outside the jail in Plattsburgh, New York, “The day this opens, we will have at
least 20 inmates here the next day.” County Sheriff David Favro echoed the sentiment, saying
“It will be nice to have them here, and it gives us some additional revenue to pay for all this.”32

A lack of coordination between county and state corrections officials leaves many
people who have been sentenced to prison sitting in county jails
When New York State prison populations were on the rise and state correctional facilities
were facing crowding problems, county jails helped to contain the overflow by holding
individuals detained on state parole violations or awaiting transfer to state facilities. This
practice continues despite the fact that New York’s prison population is decreasing and there
is a real possibility that some state facilities may be closed. The housing of state prisoners in
local jails “has contributed to overcrowding in many county facilities and has forced counties
to board out their own inmates,” according to the New York State Association of Counties.
“This growing problem has forced the [S]COC to mandate the construction of larger facilities
that are more substantial than counties need, or in some cases, can pay for.”33
Approximately 5.6 percent of people held in jails outside of New York City are detained by
state corrections officials for technical parole violations. This number more than doubles
when new arrest parole violators or parole violators with new charges pending are factored
in and increases even more when “state-ready” prisoners are taken into consideration.
According to the New York State Division of Parole, there are approximately 4,700 technical
parole violators who are being held in local jails at any given time. A 2005 fiscal analysis
revealed that in Suffolk County alone, state parole violators cost the county approximately
$6 million annually and took up approximately 100 jail beds a day.34 While Governor Spitzer’s
last budget provides an increase in funding to counties for holding people for the state, this
population remains a factor in driving up the total population of people in local jails.

12

Impact of New Jail Construction in New York State
Counties also share comparable social, economic, and environmental costs of new jail
construction in addition to similarities in jail population growth trends.

Economic Costs
As previously stated, the total cost of new jail construction in New York State is estimated to
be $1 billion, and jail construction represents the largest county capital expenditure project in
many New York counties.35 While New York homeowners already pay the highest taxes in the
country – 72 percent higher than the national average – these new capital projects are driving
property taxes even higher.36 For example, property taxes in Ulster County rose 40 percent
after the newly-built jail cost more than $20 million over its initial budget.37
The high price tag of new jails also cuts into county expenditures in other areas. The cost of
housing an individual in the Suffolk County Jail in 2002 was $113.85 a day, meaning that the
approximate cost of holding their jail population over the course of a year was in excess of
$23 million. Suffolk County’s operating budget for “Public Safety” – the vast majority of which
is spent on the sheriff, police, district attorney, probation, and jail staff – is already one of
the largest expenditures in the county budget, representing 19 percent of the 2003 budget
versus the 9 percent earmarked for education and 6 percent for health. In other words, for
every $100 spent by Suffolk County, $19 is spent on “public safety” compared with only $9
spent on education and $6 spent on health services. The construction of a massive new jail
will in all probability widen that disparity even further.38

Social Costs
Low-income communities of color throughout New York State – who form a significant
percentage of the people being held in local jails – disproportionately bear the burdens
of new jail construction. Studies across the United States have demonstrated that the
overrepresentation of blacks and Latinos in jails and prisons, referred to as “disproportionate
minority confinement,” is not a result of more criminal behavior within these communities.
Rather, it is the result of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice system – including
policing, arrests, sentencing and parole.39
The New York State Division of Criminal Justice (DCJS) studied the disproportionate
confinement of blacks in the criminal justice system and found significant evidence of racial
bias as a factor. Examining both black and white offenders convicted of similar crimes, DCJS
found that blacks were more likely to be incarcerated than whites. The rates of difference
were 5 percent in New York City, 13 percent in the suburbs of New York City, and 17 percent
in Upstate New York. DCJS concluded that “this evidence can be interpreted as establishing a
prima facie case that race plays an important role in sentencing defendants from the suburbs
and upstate regions of New York.”40
In Suffolk County, the black community is grossly overrepresented in the Suffolk County jail
system. African Americans make up 7 percent of the total population of Suffolk County but
40 percent of the total jail population. Over half – 54 percent – of the people detained in jail
before trial because they are unable to make bail are black. The Latino community is also
overrepresented in Suffolk County jails. While making up 11 percent of the Suffolk County
population and 9 percent of the people who get arrested, Latinos make up 18 percent of the
jail population and 20 percent of the pretrial detainees.41
The same disproportion exists in Rensselaer County, New York. Although blacks comprise
only 5.5 percent of the county’s residents, in 2005 they made up 35 percent of the jail
population. While Latinos comprise only 2.5 percent of the population of Rensselaer County,
they make up 7 percent of the local jail population.42

13

For all community members, the policy of sending an increasing number of people into jail
for even short periods of time has its own set of negative repercussions and is less likely
to prevent crime than it is to disrupt people’s lives and produce further marginalization. For
people who are mentally ill, any time in jail can make it more difficult to receive treatment.
According to the National Association of Counties, counties are better able to serve the
mentally ill by keeping them within health and human services, where they can monitor their
condition, provide humane treatment, and dispense medication when needed. Psychiatrists
that work with county health departments claim that when their clients enter jail, the trauma
is so severe that they “have to work twice as hard to get individuals to where they were”
before they entered detention.43
Spending time in jail, however short, also has long-term implications for people’s future
success, including their levels of employment and their probability of continuing contact with
the criminal justice system. Looking at youth aged 14 to 24, Princeton University researchers
found that a youth who spent some time incarcerated in a youth facility experienced three
weeks less work a year as compared to a youth who had no history of incarceration. The
effect was larger for black youth, who experienced five weeks less work a year than black
youth who had served no juvenile jail time. Fifteen years later, people who had been
incarcerated as youth worked between three and five weeks less a year than those who had
never been incarcerated. According to a different study that examined economic outcomes of
incarceration, jailing a young person between the ages of 16 and 25 for any amount of time
reduced their work time over the next decade by 25 to 30 percent. According to the study’s
author, “having been in jail is the single most important deterrent to employment.”44

Environmental Costs
Finally, new jail construction on such a grand scale poses a large environmental risk to
upstate and suburban New York. The construction of prisons and jails has a large impact
on the local community in that prisons and jails resemble small towns or cities with their
attendant industries, populations, and infrastructure. The United States Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has identified correctional facilities as an important but frequently
overlooked environmental issue. Environmental hazards that are associated with the
construction and maintenance of detention facilities include wastewater treatment, hazardous
waste and trash disposal, asbestos management, pesticide use, vehicle maintenance, and
power production.
Correctional facilities can also drain the resources of their host communities. They use
significant amounts of limited resources such as water and sewer capacity, can take valuable
land out of productive use and off the tax roll, and create traffic and congestion.45

14

Recommendations
Given the tremendous impact that such massive new jail construction has had and will have
on local communities across New York State, state and local elected officials should first
seek alternatives to this massive drain of social and fiscal resources in the form of efficiency
measures and alternatives to new jail construction before moving forward with expansion.
The recent proposal by Governor Eliot Spitzer to examine the possibility of closing New York
State prisons particularly calls into question the efficacy of building new jails. For one, it
does not make fiscal sense to expend resources expanding local correctional facilities when
the overall need for correctional space has declined. In addition, the changing trend of the
New York State prison population should sound a cautionary note for what is occurring at
the local level. The decline reveals the extent to which increases in the population of people
incarcerated reflect shifts in public policy, not long-term trends. Building costly new facilities
in response to these trends may in the long-run produce needless bed space. Experience
also shows that it is more politically difficult – and financially wasteful – to close down an
existing facility than it is to eliminate the need for new construction. Immediate steps that
can be taken to dramatically reduce the pressure for costly new jail construction include the
following:
The State Commission of Corrections should stop the practice of mandating the construction
and size of correctional facilities in New York State. While the SCOC should continue its
charge to ensure that conditions in local jails are safe and humane as well as work with local
counties to ensure that people held in jail are not subject to any risks due to overcrowded
facilities, they should curtail giving mandates to local governments that dictate how and
when to build. This unfunded mandate from the state has severe consequences for local
budgets, ignores the myriad alternative solutions that can be implemented first, places county
governments in the perilous position of being forced to make critical governmental decisions
without proper planning to avoid financial sanction from the state, and has already created
boondoggle projects that cost local taxpayers millions of dollars. The SCOC would be a more
effective agency if its mandate shifted to working with local governments to ensure that
correctional facilities are safe and humane, instead of issuing blanket recommendations that
come with little planning, technical, or financial assistance.
In place of set mandates regarding new construction, New York State counties should begin
“evidence-based planning”i regarding needs for local jail capacity based on a real assessment
of why increasing numbers of people are in jail and issue recommendations accordingly.
The first step in ensuring proper planning is for county legislatures to bring together a local
planning body comprised of stakeholders, including: representatives of the different justice
systems; representatives of local civic organizations and fiscal watchdog groups; social
service providers, in particular mental health practitioners; and community representatives,
particularly those who have had direct contact with the local correctional system; with
assistance from state and national experts on detention reform. This planning body should
conduct a full assessment of the local jail system and issue recommendations for reform, to
include 1) population projections at the short-, mid-, and long-term range, 2) the necessary
jail capacity for the county given these projections, 3) an assessment of how to improve
jail conditions and programming, and 4) what current inefficiencies exist in the system
that cause inflation of both the jail population and the cost of running the facility. The body

i. “Evidence-based planning” calls for the use of the best available objective evidence and systematically collected data when engaged in planning processes. Drawn from the definition of “evidence-based
medicine,” the intention is to ensure that there is the “conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best practice evidence” in making all decisions.

15

should also develop impact assessments of all proposed solutions on the county budget
and tax levy. To ensure complete accountability and transparency to all county residents,
the planning body should conduct its meetings with public accessibility, make all materials
available to the public via open meeting and FOIA laws, host a public meeting on the issue
with a 30-day public comment period for draft recommendations, and make all reports and
recommendations available both online and at local libraries. These recommendations should
form the baseline for planning on detention reform, with the mandate to develop a system
that is cost-efficient and does not unnecessarily keep people in detention.
One partial model of such a planning body is Suffolk County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating
Council, which was convened by the County Executive and included participation from
Probation, Legal Aid, the County Executive’s Office, the Department of Health Services,
the courts, SUNY-Stony Brook, the District Attorney’s office, the Sheriff, Community Mental
Hygiene, Public Works, the Office of Legislative Budget Review, the League of Women Voters,
and the Long Island Progressive Association, with assistance from the National Institute
of Corrections. After spending a period of months collecting data from various agencies,
they issued a public report in May 2005 that determined that some factors of increased jail
population were:
•	 Policy Changes in Suffolk County/Different Use of Jail: These changes included more nonfelony crimes resulting in incarceration; increased use of incarceration for both pre- and
post-sentencing; defendants identified with gangs being treated more severely, even for
minor offenses; and changes in judicial and prosecutorial practices
•	 Lack of Adequate Resources for the Mentally Ill: The closure of mental health facilities in
Suffolk County has given the criminal justice system fewer options and resulted in more
mentally ill people in jail.
•	 Underutilized Alternatives to Detention Programs: Community-based supervision programs
have empty space but are being underutilized due to a lack of communication within the
justice system.
•	 Changes in the Flow of the System: With minor offenses like public disorder making up 60
percent of all Suffolk County arrests, more people are flowing into the system. There is a
resultant back-up in the court docket.
The Coordinating Council issued a set of 29 recommendations on ways to address these
factors without building more jail space, including: better mental health screening, supervised
pretrial release, better transportation to court for people facing hearings, and better
communication among systems to identify existing alternative programs. If fully implemented,
the CJCC recommendations could potentially eliminate the need for any additional jail
construction in Suffolk County.46
The counties and the state should institute contract controls to monitor how contracts are
distributed and what their impact is on taxpayers. The practice of mandating jail construction
without fully assessing the costs or the jail-building process has created a troubling
incentive for a small number of construction agencies and correctional providers to vie for
county contracts. Due to the external pressures created by the SCOC, these contracts have
sometimes escaped oversight, to the detriment of taxpayer accountability. A system of
contract controls should be implemented that can monitor how contracts for jail construction,
expansion, and services are distributed throughout the state. In addition, the financial impact
of these contracts on local taxpayers must be monitored.

16

Are There Alternatives to Jail Construction?

47

Solutions to jail overcrowding are as specific to each locality as the factors that drive it, and local stakeholders must
come together to determine what might work best in their own municipality. However, concerned officials can certainly
look to reforms and efficiency measures other counties have successfully implemented to help determine what might
be viable in their own community. Some examples of the possible programs, reforms, and efficiency measures that
have been implemented throughout the country as mechanisms to reduce jail populations and save costs include:

Creating Pre-Arrest Programs
Citation programs: Many counties have implemented programs that give citations to offenders without booking them
through the arrest process. These citations can entail a notice to appear or a desk appearance ticket and help
eliminate unnecessary jail bookings. Offenders are booked only when they present a flight risk, present a clear and
present danger to their community, or are unable to prove their identity. This solution has been used in the case of
low-level misdemeanor crimes.
Programs for the mentally ill: Through hiring civilian police employees with mental health training and by creating
training programs to help officers recognize mental illness, counties can divert people with mental illness away from
jail and into emergency mental health care programs instead. Trained officers identify mental illness and work with
other agencies to provide the necessary treatment outside of detention facilities.

Improving Release Procedures for the Pretrial and Sentenced Populations
These improvements decrease jail populations by ensuring that people are moving through the system in a timely
fashion. Examples include: setting time limits for releasing pretrial defendants brought in on certain charges such
as public drunkenness, transferring committed offenders (“state-readies”) to state facilities rapidly, and transferring
mentally ill inmates to state hospitals in a more timely fashion.
Pretrial Diversion: Pretrial services programs can help alleviate jail crowding by releasing inmates before trial and by
providing three essential services. First, they provide information about the defendant to help decision makers make
an appropriate pretrial release or detention decision. Second, they provide the decision maker options for safely
releasing the defendant. Third, they have the capacity to monitor and supervise defendants who are released before
trial.
Bail Reform: National studies show most pretrial inmates are those who cannot post a money bond, or bail.
Instituting bail reform is a means of alleviating overcrowding in this population. Examples of such reform include
increasing the frequency of initial appearance hearings that set bail and holding bond review hearings several days
after defendants enter jail to determine whether they might qualify for case disposition, bond reduction, or pretrial
release consideration.

Specialty Courts
Including drug courts, domestic violence courts and mental health courts, specialty courts were developed as a
means to provide individuals with a sanction that includes treatment that would not be provided though the standard
criminal justice system.

Alternatives to Incarceration
In response to increased jail populations, probation agencies are working with other criminal justice agencies to
develop alternative punishment programs, which are court-sanctioned programs that mandate supervision but do
not hold individuals in secure detention. The most widely used alternative to incarceration program is supervised
probation, which allows a person found guilty of an offense to stay in the community, usually under the conditions
and supervision of a probation officer. Other alternatives to incarceration include measures such as court-mandated
treatment.

17

Conclusion:
The rising number of people in local jails in New York – and the rest of the country – is an
issue that deserves much greater attention than it has received. The social, fiscal, and
environmental impact on community residents throughout New York State – both those
incarcerated within the jails and those who reside in the communities that house them – are
significant.
The public must be more actively informed and engaged in the process of determining jail
policy. State elected officials and county legislators must also re-evaluate their spending
priorities to determine whether massive investment in detention is the most effective use of
taxpayer money, instead of investing in, for example, education or health initiatives.
Lessons learned from recent expansion projects, possible alternatives to jail construction,
and the impacts of these respective policy decisions on the people of New York State must all
be taken into greater consideration when making these critical planning decisions.
As the state of New York undergoes an evaluation of many of its current criminal justice
practices, there is also an opportunity to re-examine its detention policies. Failure to do so
may leave us in a position much like our prison incarceration policies, where we are now
bearing the social and fiscal costs of public policy that was informed by politics instead
of rational assessment, and whose consequences are far harder to undo than was its
implementation.

18

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