Research

Scope and Content Note

The series consists of reports documenting the daily capacity and inmate population for each correctional facility managed by the department. The reports are the official source for such statistics, which are used to calculate the rate of occupancy of the prisons in New York State. The reports dramatically document the rise of the state's inmate population and the dangerous rise in percentage of occupancy, which has led to isolated instances of violence in facilities.

Although the reporting format changed over the years, a typical report contains two pages which provide the following data for each facility; designed general confinement capacity of the facility; actual general confinement population; designed capacity for restricted housing; actual number in restricted housing; total capacity; number of population in hospital; number furloughed; and number of unusable cells. Facilities are listed by class (major, other, reception and classification, community based, and female). Total figures are provided for each category as well as percentage of occupancy (given as a ratio of total population to general capacity, with reception capacity included in some cases.)

Some early reports provide separate totals for male and female inmates at Mt. Marcy Psychiatric Center and Rikers Island (commitments, parole violators, and hearings completed). Later reports are computer printouts which also provide numbers of inmates in infirmary, on temporary release, at an outside hospital, or out to court. These reports are arranged by level of security (maximum, medium, minimum, work release, camps). Often memoranda are attached as amendments to these capacity reports.