Quoted Text

CAPITOL
Early release for inmates possible
Plan would trim prison population, save money
BY MICHAEL VIRTANEN The Associated Press

    The Paterson administration has proposed further emptying New York’s prisons by releasing more inmates six months early for good behavior, putting middle-aged convicts into shock camps and punishing technical parole violations with something short of prison.
    Corrections chief Brian Fischer said the measures, recommended earlier this year by a special commission that included lawmakers, are based on past successes and would help the criminal justice system operate more rationally. They require the Legislature’s approval.
    The three measures would remove an estimated 1,600 more inmates from prisons in a year. The population — which stood at 59,918 on Thursday at 69 facilities — is down about 11,500 since its 1999 peak. Fischer cited a reduced crime rate and improved focus on helping convicts re-enter society.
    “The point isn’t to empty the prisons,” corrections spokesman Erik Kriss said, calling savings a side benefit. “The point is to build on stuff we’ve found works.”
    Currently, 39 percent of inmates return within a three-year period, most for parole violations, Kriss said. Technical violations can include failing a drug test or missing curfew.
    Parole Division spokeswoman Heather Groll said the division could proceed administratively if the bill isn’t passed.
    The proposed expansion of the six-month military-style shock camp, begun in 1987 for inmates under age 24, would allow nonviolent offenders up to age 49 with less than three years left on their sentences to be admitted. Graduates’ recidivism rate is 20 percent lower than other inmates, Fischer said.
    The credit time proposal for good behavior is a variation on Merit Time, which allows nonviolent offenders to earn reduced sentences for good behavior and program participation. Fischer said since it started in 1996, prisons have seen a 35 percent decline in assaults on staff and 60 percent drop in assaults on other inmates.
    Janice Grieshaber, executive director of the Jenna Foundation for Non-Violence, said she................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00103

patterson ...good move !!!! ya right >

Will this inept, cluesless Governor ever get out of his own way?
Earth to Paterson: The reason the nation was enjoying 50-year lows in crime rates last year (except Schenectady County of course) is precisely because
fully one percent of the entire US population now resides behind bars - the highest rate of incarceration in recent memory. It is no coincidence that
crime rates would fall under those circumstances.

train them all to be astronauts....put them in a space shuttle and OFF TO MARS......reproduce there and welcome to the new "Escape from NY"....
Snake will be looking out for ya......