Nationally, the number of incarcerated citizens peaked in 2009. Nonetheless, Tompkins County has run out of room to house its inmates and is seeking to expand its housing space. This county isn’t alone in this dilemma, though, because counties like Broome and Cortland are dealing with jail expansions as well. What exactly do expansion projects like this entail – and why are they necessary right now, despite slowly shifting national incarceration trends?

Past Expansion Efforts

The current expansion proposal is not the county’s first expansion effort. When the current facility was opened in 1987, it was a 33-bed facility created to replace the existing city jail and comply with state requirements regarding recreation space. As former Legislature Chair Tim Joseph explained in 2000, “Within a few years we were again overcrowded and modified the new jail to house 72. We were soon overcrowded again and received state waivers to house over 100.”

In 1999 the county began a needs assessment study to consider expansions of the Warren Road facility. The plan included three phases that would add progressively more beds. For $11.9 million, the housing changes in the first phase would have entailed building a 48-bed “pod” off the existing maximum security wing to raise the capacity to 105 without the use of any variances. Phase two would have increased the capacity to 134 by adding a second floor to that pod for $12.9 million. Phase three would have increased the capacity to 196 by adding an additional pod and a multi-purpose room for $19.2 million.

By the time the legislature voted on the matter in 2004, costs had increased and plans had changed so that a 104-bed option was projected to cost close to $20 million. Nonetheless, the legislature expressed support for the expansion. The New York State Commission of Corrections (SCOC), however, announced that it would not approve anything less than 136 beds.

At the time, Joseph said, “I had reconciled myself to a 104-bed jail with the spine for 196 beds. The legislature as a whole agreed on that. They [the state 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.” 

In retaliation, that same month (December 2004) the SCOC took away the variances that had been allowing Tompkins County to house 103 inmates and reduced the jail capacity to 73. Eventually the jail got back some of those variances and is currently housing 93. Whenever the jail exceeds that number, it has to “board out” the additional inmates, which involves paying $85 a day to house them in neighboring counties with open bed space. Although in 2012 the average daily population was 90, because of the need to separate females and juveniles, there were still an average of eight inmates boarded out at any given time—to the tune of $244,000 over the course of the year. 

Current Expansion Efforts 

The current $900,000 expansion plan is much more modest than the previous abandoned efforts. It only aims to add seven beds to the facility, although the plan allows for the possibility of a third phase that would add an additional seven beds. Because the new beds will be installed in the indoor recreation area, the plan also includes putting a roof over the proposed outdoor recreation area so inmates can still get exercise in inclement weather. Although it still needs the legislature’s funding approval, the jail’s head administrator, Captain Ray Bunce, reported that the SCOC has already approved the initial plan. 

Although SCOC pressure played a significant role in previous decisions regarding expansion efforts, this time around, jail officials initiated the expansion. Bunce said, “This expansion was inspired by an idea from the undersheriff. This was during a meeting with [SCOC] personnel.” He did acknowledge, though, that whenever a jail is granted variance bed, “[The SCOC’s] stipulation on every single one is that they want to know what you’re doing on the overcrowding situations. They want to see progress. They want to know what’s happening.”

Nearby Expansion Efforts

Tompkins County is certainly not the only county facing expansion issues in its county jail. Broome County, for instance, is in the early planning stages of a 64-bed expansion that is estimated to cost over $5.5 million. Although Broome County has a low board-out rate—as of January 21 only 2.1 percent of the population was boarded out—head jail administrator Major Mark Smolinsky explained, “Our expansion is driven by the overabundance of females. We’re averaging like 75 women, and we have housing capacity for like 60.”

Cortland County, adjacent to Tompkins on the north and east, is also looking at an expansion. Like Tompkins, Cortland is taking an indoor recreation space—a gym—and converting it into housing. Unlike Tompkins, Cortland is adding 34 beds for a mere $70,000, thanks in part to the use of some inmate labor. Head jail administrator Captain Budd Rigg said that in addition to adding beds, the project includes converting outdoor holding pens into indoor recreation areas. Cortland has decided to proceed with the project despite an unusually low population this winter; as of January 21, they didn’t have anyone boarded out.

Statewide Trends

Because of its commitment to alternatives to incarceration (ATI) in combination with its low arrest rates—number 51 out of 57 upstate counties—Tompkins has been able to maintain a remarkably small jail relative to its county population. The only county with a smaller jail capacity as compared to county population is Herkimer, a county with less than two-thirds the population of Tompkins, but—as of late January—more total inmates, the majority of which are boarded out.

We don’t just have a disproportionately small jail, but we also incarcerate a relatively smaller number of people than most other counties. For example, an SCOC report issued on January 21 reveals that Steuben County—which has a slightly smaller population than Tompkins with 99,063 residents—had 183 inmates. Although 28 of those were federal inmates and one was a board-in, that still left 154 inmates from within the county. On that same day Tompkins had 83 people incarcerated, five of which were boarded out.

Interestingly, though, in addition to having a low incarceration rate—53^rd out of 57—Tompkins also has a fairly low board-out rate. On the same day that Tompkins had six percent of its inmates—five people—boarded out, many other counties had board-out rates in the double digits. Some of the most extreme examples include: Herkimer with 63.9 percent boarded out; Greene County with 47.1 percent; Dutchess County, with 41.7 percent; Jefferson County with 24.2 percent; Hamilton County with 20 percent; and Genesee County with 16 percent. 

What are these counties doing about their board-out rates? The answers vary. The Dutchess County Legislature recently approved the purchase of land that will likely be used for a jail expansion, but the county doesn’t have any definite expansion plans yet. Jefferson County has tentative plans for a $12 million expansion of 30 to 32 beds that, like in Tompkins County, would be installed in what is currently a recreation area. Greene County recently committed to creating a committee to explore the possibility of a new facility, but they aren’t nearly as far along in the process as some of the counties with much lower board-out rates.

Hamilton County is not facing any pressure to expand because, despite the fact that it had 20 percent of its inmates boarded out as of January 21, Sheriff Karl Abrams reported that it often has no inmates at all. The Adirondack County has the smallest population of any in the state and, accordingly, the six-bed facility is generally sufficient.

Herkimer County’s Sheriff Christopher Farber explained that his county has been working on an expansion ever since the SCOC revoked the jail’s variances in 2004. He said, “When they pulled our variances we went back to the drawing board and said, ‘Okay we need to build.’" Then, he said, “We worked with a company for four or five years, and now we have a design that’s ready to go.”

Genesee County has a high board-out rate because it doesn’t have any housing area for females, so all female inmates are boarded out. Jail Superintendent Ed Minardo said that his facility and the SCOC have “had some conversations” about revoking the county’s 10 variance beds, but ultimately that hasn’t happened because the state has been understanding of the county’s financial position.

There isn’t, it seems, necessarily a correlation between board-out rate and level of interest in expansion. Some counties, like Herkimer and Dutchess, waited to consider expanding until their board-out rates were much higher than the rate in Tompkins, while counties like Cortland and Broome have embarked on expansion projects despite having lower board-out rates. One possible motive for expansion in counties with low board-out rates is the profitable possibility of boarding in federal inmates, as well as inmates from overcrowded counties. 

Alternatives to Incarceration

In the past, Tompkins County has resisted expansion in favor of expanding ATI options, but understanding whether that’s a possibility right now requires taking a look at the county’s current ATI options.

Although Tompkins County prides itself on its strong ATI, the fact that the county has the fifth lowest incarceration rate could easily be tied to the fact that it has the seventh lowest arrest rate and not necessarily to its ATI, which has suffered some cutbacks in recent years. 

In a nutshell, the county’s current ATI offerings include two drug courts, a pre-trial release program, electronic monitoring bracelets, a special greatest-risk caseload for certain probationers, a supervised community-service program called “Service Work Alternative Program,” and a day-reporting program used in combination with probation.

Opportunities, Alternatives, and Resources (OAR) has also been instrumental in reducing jail population through its revolving bail fund, which loans bail money up to $2,500 for qualifying offenders. The program bails out dozens of offenders every year. However, in 2010, funding issues forced the organization to cut one job that OAR Executive Director Deborah Dietrich said could help them do an additional eight to 12 bails per year if it were reinstated.

More than a decade ago, OAR had a defender-based advocacy (DBA) program that was eliminated, although recently a new DBA program through the county’s Assigned Counsel Office and the Center for Community in Syracuse received a $105,000 state grant. DBA programs, which supplement but do not replace defense attorneys, seek to create specific plans for each charged individual that will minimize or eliminate the need for incarceration, and so the reimplementation of a DBA program in Tompkins is expected to help reduce incarceration rates. 

One ATI option that Tompkins County once had, and which some other counties still do have, is work release. “We used to have an ATI called Reduced Incarceration Community Service program,” Probation Director Patricia Buechel explained. “The person would get sentenced to jail, and they got a reduced sentence because in exchange for the reduced sentence they could come out and work during the day, but they would come back to the jail at night.” Buechel explained that the program was cut largely because it was underutilized by judges.

Jail Population

In order to understand whether expanded ATI efforts can solve the jail’s current overcrowding problem, it is necessary to understand what types of crimes people are being incarcerated for in Tompkins County. That is, out of all the bookings in a year, what percentage are for drug crimes? What percentage are for violent crimes? What other crimes represent significant portions of the county’s incarcerated offenders? Unfortunately, County Administrator Joe Mareane said that the county doesn’t currently have this data, although he was able to obtain a list of charges for each inmate incarcerated in the Tompkins County Jail on a single day, January 25 of this year. 

One of the largest demographics in the facility on that day was parole violators, who comprised nine out of 79 inmates on the day in question. Although many parole violators came in with other charges in addition to their parole violation, from an ATI perspective the parole violations itself are the most relevant. Unlike probationers, parolees have already been convicted of felonies and served time in state prison. Upon release they are put on state-supervised parole instead of county-supervised probation. As a result, parole violators are not eligible for any sort of ATI program.

Aside from parole violators, the most common charges—as determined by the most serious charge on file—were nine DWI-related charges, including one failure to use an interlock device; six petit larceny and attempted petit larceny charges; six drug-related charges; eight robbery and attempted robbery charges; and five charges each for assault and criminal contempt. The most serious charges of the other 25 inmates on that day run the gamut from attempted strangulation to aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, more commonly known as driving with a suspended license.

Opposition to Expansion

For financial reasons alone, it is perhaps not surprising that the jail expansion has drawn some opposition. Former Tompkins County Sheriff Pete Meskill said, “I think a million dollars for seven beds is an extreme amount of money. I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer money for seven beds.”

Others, like SUNY Cortland Professor Mecke Nagel, who is part of the Stop the Tompkins County Jail Expansion Coalition, are opposed to the expansion for ideological reasons. She explained, “I feel now that any expansion signals a failure of imagination on our part. That is, we need to investigate alternatives to incarceration that work.” She added, “Tompkins hasn’t gone beyond the very traditional approaches,” and she suggested that Tompkins should consider the sort of community-based social work program offered at Cortland’s Wishing Wellness Center. Nagel described the Wellness Center as a laid-back version of day reporting where offenders can go for counseling, a sober social environment, help with DSS paperwork, or even help purchasing basic necessities like winter coats upon release.

She added, “We are really going backwards when we are expanding the jails when the governor has closed several prisons already.” In fact, since taking office in 2011, Cuomo has already closed nine state prisons and has plans to close four more by the middle of this year. 

So just why are jails expanding while prisons are closing and national incarceration rates decreasing? There are no clear answers. During the 1999 to 2001 needs assessment, as a result of the anticipated repealing of the Rockefeller drug laws, the average daily jail population was expected to skyrocket to 128 by 2015. Although the Rockefeller laws have been repealed, clearly that amount of population increase won’t happen, although it is difficult to say how much those sentencing reforms affected statewide trends.

Captain Bunce surmised that state cost-cutting measures have foisted additional inmates on county jails, although since an inmate’s placement is determined by the length of their sentence it is difficult to prove any connection. It is clear, though, that in some counties the expansion efforts are a direct result of pressure from the State Commission of Corrections, although officials say that’s not the case in Tompkins. Whatever the cause, the push for jail expansion is a trend that doesn’t seem to be going away and promises to be costly and divisive for the foreseeable future. •