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Who cares
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Sponsors
History
- Recommit, enacting clause stricken
- Referred to crime victims, crime and correction
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the correction law, in relation to reform of urban correctional facilities
Purpose or general idea of bill
This bill, sets forth legislative findings that smaller correctional facilities are more secure and better able to serve their public purpose than larger, overcrowded facilities. The bill accordingly limits the current population on Rikers Island in the City of New York to its present numbers, and requires the State Commission of Correction to develop a plan to reduce the population of Rikers Island to the population in residence on January 1, 1970.
Provisions
Section 1 of the bill is a statement of legislative intent, finding that the size of local correctional facilities plays an important role in the safety and security of such facilities, the services which can be provided by such facilities and the cost of providing them. The statement continues to take notice of the conditions of overcrowding which exist in the various correctional facilities run by the City of New York on Rikers Island. Since it would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade these facilities, the bill announces a legislative intent to cap the current population of Rikers Island and to direct the State Commission of Correction to develop a plan to reduce the population in these facilities.
Read the full memo (647 words)
Section 2 of the bill adds a new section 45-a to the Correction Law, which prohibits the State Commission of Correction from approving any plans or specifications for new construction on Rikers Island, and from increasing or waiving the maximum prisoners capacity, or taking another action which would permit the number of prisoners in Rikers Island facilities from exceeding the number in residence on July 1st, 1983. Section 45-a further provides that the Commission shall establish a plan for the orderly reduction of inmate space on Rikers Island, in favor of smaller new or renovated correctional facilities in other parts of the city. Subject to the availability of such alternative placements, the plan is to provide for a reduction by 1992 to the population levels in existence in 1970.
Justification
The various local correctional facilities on Rikers Island are currently under population caps imposed by federal judges due to overcrowding, poor sanitation, and other facility shortcomings. The current population of all facilities on Rikers Island is over 8,000 inmates many of whom are housed in temporary quarters in areas never designed or intended as detention space. The NYC Commissioner of Correction has noted that "the age and decrepit condition" of the House of Detention for Men on Rikers Island make it difficult for the city to meet mandated standards, and the City of New York has also found that it would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade this facility. The other correctional and detention facilities on Rikers Island share this plight.
Large, overcrowded facilities such as those on Rikers Island do not preserve the safety of inmates, correctional officers, or the public, and they do not carry out the public purposes for which they operate. Neither humane housing of those which awaiting trial on criminal charges nor rehabilitation of sentenced misdemeanants is achievable in these facilities. These problems are compounded by the enormous costs of transportation caused by the geographic remoteness of Rikers Island from courts and other processing points.
The City of New York has already launched an ambitious program of capital construction of correctional space. This legislation would assist this program by encouraging the transfer of inmates currently housed on Rikers Island to new or renovated facilities, by involving the State Commission of Correction in the planning process for such facilities at an earlier date, and by preventing the expenditure of public funds on correctional facilities on Rikers Island whose rehabilitation is not cost-effective.
Prior legislative history
1989-08-Referred to Crime and Correction Committee.
Fiscal implications
None.
Effective date
180th day after enactment.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.