Race/Ethnic Distribution
Over half
(51.3%) of the people under custody were African-American, about a quarter
were Hispanic (25.9%) and about one-fifth White (20.8%).
Region of
Commitment
The
majority of people in New York’s prisons (52.1%) were committed from New
York City (New York City is comprised
of Kings, New York,
Queens,
Richmond and Bronx counties). An additional 11.4% were committed
from suburban New York (Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, and
Westchester counties),
1.5% from
upstate counties with a population center containing 50,000 inhabitants or
more
Albany,
Broome,
Erie, Monroe, Oneida, Onondaga, Niagara, Rensselaer, and Schenectady counties),
and 15.0% from the remaining
upstate
counties.
Country
of Birth
Ninety
percent (89.6%) of under custody inmates were born in the United States or a
United
States
Territory, including American Samoa,
Panama
Canal Zone, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Approximately
ten percent (10.4%, N = 6,530) of the people under
custody
were
born in a foreign country. Most of the people under custody that were born
in a foreign
country
were from
one of
the island nations in the Caribbean basin (N = 3,566 or 5.7% of the people
under
custody ).
Marital
Status
About one-fifth (20.5%) of the
people under custody were legally married at the time of
commitment. Another 3.1% were living
in a common
law arrangement
at the time of their
commitment. The majority were single,
never married (65.7%);
the balance were separated/divorced
(8.5%) or widowed (1.0%).
Number of
Living Children
The
majority of people under custody (59.2%) report at least one living child.
Approximately 11% of the people under custody reported
four or
more living children.
Religious
Affiliation
Eighty-six
percent (86.0%) of under custody inmates claimed affiliation with a
recognized religion.
Twenty-six percent
(26.2%) were Catholic and thirty percent
(29.8%) were Protestant. Twelve
percent (12.5%) were affiliated with the Islamic faith
and
seventeen percent (17.4%) with
other
religions.
Fourteen percent (14.1%) either did not
claim affiliation with a
religion
or did
not provide information about religious affiliation.
Veteran
Status
Veterans
under custody are eligible for various benefits from the U.S.
Veterans
Administration and as a
result the
Department tracks the number of veterans in its custody.
Most of
the data on military service branch and dates
of service
is self reported during
reception/classification. The Department has a program to check eligibility
for veterans
health
care benefits with the New York State Department of Veterans' Affairs. The
military service
era
categories used in this report
are:
Pre-Vietnam (prior to January 1, 1963); Vietnam Era (January 1963 to April
30, 1975); Post-Vietnam Era (May 1, 1975 to July 31, 1990);
Persian
Gulf I Era August 1, 1990 to December 31, 2001); Afghanistan/Iraq Era
(January 1, 2002 to the present) and Service
Era
Undetermined (service dates not coded).
Of the
62,599 people under custody on January 1, 2008, 3,317 (5.3%) report military
service.
Of this total, 153 (0.2%)
were Pre
Vietnam Era veterans, 825 (1.3%) were Vietnam Era, 1,527
(2.4%) are Post Vietnam Era, 546 (0.9%) are
Persian
Gulf 1 Era, 139 (0.2%) were
Afghanistan/Iraq Era; and 127 (0.2%) were veterans of the armed forces where
service
era dates
ere not
recorded on DOCS computer files.
Minimum
Sentence
The median
minimum
sentence of under custody inmates was 59 months. However, the average
minimum sentence length was
107.6
months (almost nine years), reflecting the influence of lengthy
minimum sentences received by many of those under custody.
Commitment
Crime
Fifty-eight percent of the people under custody on January 1, 2008, had been
convicted of violent
felony crimes. Another 7.8% were convicted of
other
coercive offenses,
21.4%
were convicted of drug offenses, and 11.0% for property and other crime.
There were 968
people
(1.5%) under
custody
who had been sentenced as Youthful Offenders, and 207 (0.3%) who were
sentenced as Juvenile Offenders.
Second
Felony Offender Status
Over half
(52.4%) of the people under custody on January 1, 2008 were sentenced as
first felony offender, 43.5% were sentenced as second
felony
offenders, and 4.1% were sentenced as persistent felony offenders.
Prior
Adult Criminal Record
People
are placed in a prior adult criminal record category based on their most
extensive
penetration into the criminal justice system prior to their
current
incarceration. Thirty-five percent
(34.8%) of the people under
custody had served a prior prison term.
For 24.6%, prior
jail was the
most serious
contact with the criminal justice system. Eighteen percent (18.3%) had a
prior adult criminal conviction
which did not result in jail
or prison
incarceration, while 7.6% had no
prior conviction and 14.7% had no prior arrest.
Length of
Time Served at Current Holding Facility
The average length of time served
at the current correctional facility for a person under custody on January
1, 2008, was 16.1 months
and the median was 7.1 months.
Information on length of time served at current holding facility is useful
to facility staff when planning
program assignments. Staff use
this information to help design assignments that minimize the risk of
disruption to the program plans
due to transfer or release.
Length of
Time in Department Custody
People
held under custody on January 1, 2008, had spent on average 54.4 months in
DOCS since
their latest admission date. The
median
length of time was 24.1 months. Overall,
15,526 (24.3%) offenders had
spent 72 months or more under custody
and 6,510
(10.4%) offenders had spent less than 3 months under custody.
Time to
Earliest Release Eligibility
Time to
earliest release date is a measure of the length of time until the earliest
possible date lat which a person under custody can be legally
released. People are not necessarily
released on this date. The Board of
Parole may require people under custody to remain in prison beyond
the
earliest legal release date or they
may lose good time due to poor discipline or refusal to program and thus
remain in prison longer.
Overall, the "average time to earliest release"
for the total under custody population on
January 1, 2008 was 46.2 months, and
the "median
time to earliest release" was 13.6
months.
Reading
Proficiency
The
Department's education program objective is to encourage every person in
prison to pass a high school
equivalency
General
Education Diploma (GED) test while incarcerated. Testing and
education
programming are used by the
Department
to track the academic level of people under their custody in reading
and mathematics. In order to take the
GED examination, the Department
requires people in prison to take tests demonstrating at least a ninth grade
level in reading and mathematics.
Of the
62,247 people under custody on
January 12, 2008, 33,553 (53.9%) had a verified GED, high school diploma or
higher degree,
and 28,694 (46.1%) were without verified
academic degrees. Not eligible to take a GED
exam were 11,802 people (19.0%) whose
reading
ability was
below the sixth grade level, and an
additional 8,689 people (14.0%) whose
reading ability was between the 6th grade and 8th
grade
level.
These people required additional services to qualify to take a GED exam.
Academic Degree Status
Of the
educational attainment of persons under custody on January
2, 2008, data reveal that 33,553 (53.9%)
people
had a high
school diploma, General Education Diploma, or higher degree, out of 62,247 under custody people.
The Department only
recognizes
academic degrees that can be verified from an outside source or which are
awarded while a person is in
custody.
English
Language Proficiency
The vast
majority (92.2%) of people under custody were English language dominant.
There were also 3,878
(6.2%) people
who were Spanish language
dominant (which includes Spanish dominant
only, Spanish and limited English, and Spanish and moderate
English).
Substance
Abuse
As part of
the reception process, the Department of Correctional Services attempts to identify
people who use drugs and have problems
with
alcohol. Drug use in the six months prior
to incarceration is determined by self-report. Alcohol problems are
assessed by use of the
Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST). In
2002, the Department supplemented these
indicators with the Simplified Screening
Instrument
(SSI). Scores of four or greater on the SSI indicate substance abuse. The
specific type of substance is not identified by the SSI test.
The
Department also supplements this self-reported information with data from
the Inmate
Payroll System and the
Guidance
System. Data show that 82.6% of people in prison abuse drugs,
alcohol, or both as measured by available data from tests
and
self-reporting.
