Politics on the Hudson

  The state prison system will trim $81.6 million in spending by eliminating 200 jobs, the Correctional Services Department announced today.

The jobs will be saved by closing some some dormitories and cutting back on inmate work crews among other steps, the department announced.

The department has 31,500  workers and an annual budget of about $2.4 billion. the prison population peaked at 71,538 in 1999 to 61,339 now.

The department’s actions so far cut spending by 3 percent. Gov. David Paterson is requiring cuts of about 7 percent more, which the department said will be announced later.

On Monday, advocates who want solitary confinement banned for seriously mentally ill prisoners made their tenth trip to Albany in two years to press for legislative change. Ray Ortiz of the Urban Justice Center, a former prisoner who spent time in solitary, also known as the “box�, said the spaces inmates are confined to are like “toilets with beds.� They have to eat and sleep in the “toilet,� and they get treatment by speaking with someone on the other side of a locked door.

“Solitary confinement cannot be part of a solution in any way, shape or form for people with psychiatric illness. It’s only going to make them worse,� he said.

“If you place me in the SHU (special housing unit,) in a week I will be a sick man,� he said.

Advocates said that a settlement agreement in April that provides more protections for mentally ill inmates and 600 new treatment beds, and the $60 million in the state budget to improve conditions do not go far enough.

The legislation they are seeking, similar to a bill vetoed by former Gov. George Pataki last year, is on the Senate calendar for floor debate and in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

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