Legislature Rejects Prison Closure Commission Proposal

Albany, N.Y.--TheLegislature has agreed in the 2007-08 state budgetto reject Governor Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to establish a Commission on Prison Capacity.

"There’s absolutely no need to establish a new layer of bureaucracy to study prison closures in New York State," said State Senator George H. Winner, Jr. (R-C, Elmira),a member of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee. "Prisons are state-run facilities and if Governor Spitzer wants to study closing any of them, he’s free to do that on his own. There’s no need to change the process."

Spitzer’s 2007-08 state budget proposal, released in late January, called for the creation of a Commission on Prison Capacity, similar to the State Commission on Health Care Facilities for the 21^st Century, commonly known as the Berger Commission. The Commission on Prison Capacity could have recommend closing correctional facilities, withthe recommendationsbecoming law unless the Legislature voted to reject them.

"We don’t need a Berger-type commission to study prisons," Winner said.