BUILDING UNNECESSARY JAILS

New York started a disastrous national trend when it passed the
draconian Rockefeller drug laws 32 years ago. These laws erased the
common-sense distinction between petty drug users and kingpins,
sending even first-time offenders to jail for periods of 15 years to
life. The laws drove up the inmate population markedly, committed the
state to spend billions to build and run new prisons, and did nothing
to curb the drug trade.

Prosecutors who rightly viewed the laws as impractical and unfair
began to get around them by never bringing novice offenders to trial
at all, instead diverting them to drug treatment and other
rehabilitation programs. The Pataki administration has also developed
forward-looking programs in prisons and has begun to stress
post-prison strategies that help people who get out of jail to
actually stay out.

Gov. George E. Pataki took credit for this shift in his State of the
State address. He told his listeners that the prison population had
dropped by about 8,000 people, or 11 percent of the total, over the
last five years. But county officials and prison rights advocates
noted a glaring discrepancy between the governor's sentiments and the
actual behavior of the State Commission of Correction, an agency with
great influence over prison policy in New York and one that the
governor essentially controls.

Founded in the late 19th century to promote humane treatment at state
prisons, the commission has historically concerned itself with
training and administrative issues. But recently it has been pressing
counties around the state to build new local jails.

A recent study released by a watchdog group, the New York State
Network for Jail Alternatives and Safer Communities, asserts that
since 1995, 36 of New York's counties have built, are constructing or
are considering new jails -- thanks partly to pressure from the state.

This has made several counties unhappy. They do not believe they
should be asked to build new jails while the prison population is
declining. On Long Island, Suffolk County has recently sued the
commission, accusing it of arbitrary and capricious enforcement of
state law in a dispute over jail expansion. Tompkins County refused to
expand its jail in a manner suggested by the state, and other counties
are poised to follow suit.

The counties argue further that they should not be spending millions
of dollars on jails at a time when the country as a whole is moving
away from mass incarceration and toward rehabilitation, job training
and other forms of nonjail approaches. Their complaints make sense;
local jail populations are often made up mainly of mentally ill
persons and other low-level offenders who would not be in jail at all
if they could afford bail. Some critics of the building plan fear that
the state is preparing to shift responsibility for incarceration to
the local level.

Finally, the counties argue that state officials who got into the
prison business in the post-Rockefeller years may be assuming that
jail and prison populations can only go up, when in fact, as Mr.
Pataki himself noted, they can go down as well.

The state should take these criticisms seriously. It should also make
sure that it is not pressing the counties to build massive new jails
that local sheriffs will then feel compelled to keep full.

Mr. Pataki should use his influence to straighten out this dispute. He
should also make sure that the counties understand and have access to
the methods that have successfully reduced the state prison population.