The residents of the legendary Big House that is Sing Sing could not be blamed if 11 years ago they didn’t feel the old prison lived up to its nickname.

With nearly 2,300 inmates housed at the maximum-security prison in Ossining, it was a little closer to a cramped house.

But that’s not the case now.

The number of inmates at Sing Sing has plummeted by 25 percent since 2000, down to just over 1,700, a Journal News analysis of state prison data shows.

Two other state prisons in Westchester — Bedford Hills and Taconic correctional facilities — also have had significant drops in the number of inmates over the past 11 years.

“New York is sort of like the gold star for the nation for its significant drop in crime and its lowering its number of inmates,” said Ashley Nellis, an analyst with the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based advocate for criminal justice reform.

A steady drop in crime, changes to New York’s harsh Rockefeller drug laws and budget woes have been the catalysts for the decline in prisoner population, experts said. And alternatives to prison such as drug courts and community-based supervision for nonviolent offenders are cheaper remedies that are proving effective.

The state is in line with a national trend. For the first time in nearly four decades, state prisons nationwide had fewer inmates in 2010 than the previous year.

Taconic, a medium-security prison for women adjacent to the Bedford Hills facility, saw its population drop by 33 percent. Bedford Hills, a maximum-security prison for women, was down by 9 percent.

Those figures mirror statewide numbers, which show a 22 percent drop in inmates from a historical high of 71,466 in 2000.

In 2011, there were 55,599 prison inmates in New York, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The post New York Drug-law Reforms, Drop in Crime Reduce Prison Population appeared first on Don Diva Magazine.

The residents of the legendary Big House that is Sing Sing could not be blamed if 11 years ago they didn’t feel the old prison lived up to its nickname.

With nearly 2,300 inmates housed at the maximum-security prison in Ossining, it was a little closer to a cramped house.

But that’s not the case now.

The number of inmates at Sing Sing has plummeted by 25 percent since 2000, down to just over 1,700, a Journal News analysis of state prison data shows.

Two other state prisons in Westchester — Bedford Hills and Taconic correctional facilities — also have had significant drops in the number of inmates over the past 11 years.

“New York is sort of like the gold star for the nation for its significant drop in crime and its lowering its number of inmates,” said Ashley Nellis, an analyst with the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based advocate for criminal justice reform.

A steady drop in crime, changes to New York’s harsh Rockefeller drug laws and budget woes have been the catalysts for the decline in prisoner population, experts said. And alternatives to prison such as drug courts and community-based supervision for nonviolent offenders are cheaper remedies that are proving effective.

The state is in line with a national trend. For the first time in nearly four decades, state prisons nationwide had fewer inmates in 2010 than the previous year.

Taconic, a medium-security prison for women adjacent to the Bedford Hills facility, saw its population drop by 33 percent. Bedford Hills, a maximum-security prison for women, was down by 9 percent.

Those figures mirror statewide numbers, which show a 22 percent drop in inmates from a historical high of 71,466 in 2000.

In 2011, there were 55,599 prison inmates in New York, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The post New York Drug-law Reforms, Drop in Crime Reduce Prison Population appeared first on Don Diva Magazine.