{"id":113,"date":"2019-01-14T17:47:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T17:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.justtalk.blog\/?p=113"},"modified":"2019-01-14T17:47:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T17:47:58","slug":"broome-countys-2019-budget-revisited-maintaining-mass-incarceration-prosecution-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/2019\/01\/14\/broome-countys-2019-budget-revisited-maintaining-mass-incarceration-prosecution-policing\/","title":{"rendered":"Broome County\u2019s 2019 Budget Revisited: Maintaining Mass Incarceration, Prosecution, Policing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new year brings a new budget<\/a> for Broome County, with the County Executive and Legislators celebrating a tax cut.\u00a0 As noted in a previous column here<\/a>, the proposed budget projected more funding for incarceration. The approved budget reveals even more emphasis increasing funding for the prosecution, policing, and incarceration of the people, especially the poor people, of the county.<\/p>\n

Elected officials blame the most dramatic increases on implementing Raise-the-Age, the state-imposed mandate to remove 16- and 17-year-olds from adult county jails. This indeed another \u201creform\u201d that has inflated carceral costs around the state<\/a>. Yet the state is, we are told, to repay related expenses. And one might have expected a reduction in local county jail costs given the removal of youth and their special needs.\u00a0 That hasn\u2019t happened. Indeed the county\u2019s new budget reveals the continuing acceleration of the practices of mass incarceration well beyond the forces targeted at youth and particularly Black and Latinx youth.<\/p>\n

It presents a puzzle. One might ask, as did a Cortland county legislator in a public meeting there late last year:<\/p>\n

\u2018Why are our county jail costs rising without end, when our county\u2019s population is steady or falling over time and crime rates are falling?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

This is certainly the case in Broome county, where crime rates are now lower than twenty years ago, the population is smaller,[1]<\/a> and yet jail funding has starkly, radically, risen[2]<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The number of correctional officers has risen from 167 to 194 over this time. This year\u2019s budget continues the trend, bringing us four new correction officers and two new staff for the Sheriff, and five new staff for the probation office as well.<\/p>\n

Who is losing funding? The budget eliminates, among other cuts, six public health lines, including two nurses; four nurses at Willow Point nursing home; and one part-time veterans service assistant. The county mental health division, having seen its budget cut by over 70% in the last fifteen years, and down to just 3 positions, is simply reported to have \u201crequested a 1.3% cut in County Support.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Both Republican and Democratic legislators have continued to vote for these priorities: the continual expansion of policing and incarceration, and continual cuts in public health and public social services.<\/p>\n

The long-term push for incarceration is even evident within<\/em> the county\u2019s criminal justice system. While the number positions in the district attorney\u2019s office has grown from 27 to 38 in the last fifteen years, the number in the public defender\u2019s office has remained flat at 21. Expenditures by both departments chart a startlingly enhancement of the resources and power of the DA\u2019s office:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Is it any surprise that that those lingering unconvicted in the Broome County jail constantly complain about lack of access to harried public defenders?\u00a0 Or that given such allocations, Broome County has literally unparalleled resources to find and prosecute even the most minor of misdemeanors, giving us the dubious honor of having the highest incarceration of all 62 counties in the state?<\/p>\n

Almost all these changes are reported week after week as part of frugal budgeting, bewildering attempts to make sense of what is going on in the county. Take this past week\u2019s announcement that a new state requirement, which requires defendants to have representation at their arraignment, would be implemented by having central arraignment at the Broome County Jail. This was heralded by all our elected officials as a masterpiece of fiscal efficiency:<\/p>\n