The New York Legislature voted Monday to close six prisons across the state as part of the 2021-2022 budget, citing a declining prison population and savings to taxpayers.
The closures slated for March 10 include Downstate Correctional Facility in Dutchess County, the closest state facility to New York City in the current list. Downstate — long the first stop for city prisoners after being sentenced — is currently at just over half-capacity. State data shows there are 688 inmates at Downstate and 644 staff.
The statewide prison population as of Monday was 31,469, a drop of more than 41,304, or 56.7%, since a high of 72,773 in 1999. The current total is also the lowest number of people in prison since 1984, prison officials said.
Prison officials said they reviewed all 50 prisons before selecting the six to be closed. Nearly all of them have more staff than prisoners and are operating at well under capacity. The closures will save the state an estimated $142 million.
Advocates have been pressing for prison closures for years, while the state correction unions and local pols have resisted because the institutions bring jobs and boost local economies.
The move was lauded by activist Jose Saldana, who said it didn’t go far enough. “New York’s prisons still hold roughly two times more incarcerated people today than in the 1970s, at the dawn of our nation’s mass incarceration era,” said Saldana, director of the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign.
“Therefore, Governor Hochul and the legislature must use their powers to safely release people from prison. The governor must use her clemency powers frequently, inclusively and transparently.”
He called for passage of bills that release older people and reduce and accelerate sentences for parole violations, which send people back to prison.
“Without these measures, and despite these closures, thousands will continue to needlessly languish behind bars,” he said. “Tens of thousands of Black and Latinx families are counting on New York’s leaders to bring their loved ones home.”
The medium-security Willard Drug Treatment Campus in Seneca County near Syracuse will also close. The lockup has a staff of 329 overseeing 168 incarcerated people — well under the capacity of 664.
The other facilities scheduled to close include Ogdensburg on the Canadian border, Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in the Catskills, the maximum-security Southport Correctional Facility in central New York, which has a staff of 405 watching 268 prisoners, and Rochester Correctional Facility, which houses just 46 people.
“Among these facilities, Southport, a prison dedicated exclusively to solitary confinement for decades, tortured countless souls and ripped apart many families,” Saldana said.
Prison officials said staff at the shuttered facilities will either be transferred to other prisons or considered for employment at other state agencies. No layoffs are anticipated. How the facilities will be used in the future remains unclear.
Inmates housed in the facilities will be moved to other prisons.
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