- The population of those incarcerated has shifted dramatically from downstate to upstate, a 2022 nonprofit report found.
- In 2000, approximately 66% of New Yorkers incarcerated in state prisons were from the five boroughs. The number dropped to about 50% in 2010 and was 42% in 2020.
- The shift may have been influenced by changing views on incarceration, sentencing, and crime rates.
The crack cocaine that sentenced young Juma Sampson to 25 years in prison in 2000 weighed about the same as half a bar of soap.
If he’d managed to sell all 70 grams that day — or even that week, that month — he probably wouldn’t have made more than $3,000, Sampson said.
After the 23-year-old was arrested trying to sell the drugs to an undercover cop in Rochester, he was instead prosecuted as part of two crime-fighting initiatives: One imposed a tougher sentence for selling crack cocaine compared to its powder alternative. The other, after police found an unregistered firearm at his girlfriend’s home, referred Sampson’s case to federal court, which imposed higher penalties on illegal gun charges, often served out of state. Sampson said the gun was not his.
His first adult offense — a nonviolent crime — landed Sampson 25 years in a Pennsylvania jail cell nearly five hours away. He was released in early 2019.
The neighborhood on the west side of Rochester where Sampson grew up has one of the highest community incarceration rates in the state.
“We’re not taught downtown what it takes to be successful,” said Sampson, now 45. “We only know what it takes to survive, and that’s never going to be enough.”
People in New York jails are increasingly coming from upstate, part of a decades-long reversal of incarcerated New Yorkers from New York City’s five boroughs, according to the findings of an analysis of 2022 census data by the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit study prison trends at a national level Level.
Among the findings:
- Black, Latino and low-income urban communities make up a majority of the state’s prison population, which numbered about 42,000 in the 2020 census, the Prison Policy Initiative found in its report.
- While some New York City boroughs have higher incarceration rates, most people who go to prison come from communities like Albany, Monticello, Newburgh, and Rochester.
“It’s no longer something we can dismiss as a New York City problem,” said Emily Widra, senior research analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative and author of the report. “It’s really affecting the whole state and the communities in every county.”
On Wednesday, researchers released a final report examining incarceration rates in a dozen states, including New York.
The change in New York law informed about the shift in the prison population
The Prison Policy Initiative analyzed 2020 census data after New York changed its relocation laws to count incarcerated people from where they live, not from the prison where they are being held.
The data ranges from counties — including those with the highest incarceration rates, such as Schenectady, Albany, and Monroe — to census district levels.
In contrast, New York City boroughs had much lower incarceration rates.
Certain neighborhoods had higher rates: Brownsville in Brooklyn had 722 people per 100,000 in prison, while East Harlem had 649 people per 100,000.
But that was far fewer than the city of Rochester, which averaged more than 1,050 people per 100,000 people going to jail — a number more than five times that of New York City.
All 62 boroughs had people incarcerated, although much of the incarcerated population came from neighborhoods that were historically underserved. These neighborhoods were also historically more black, a legacy of mass incarceration.
The number of inmates has shifted dramatically from the lower state to the upper state, Windra said. In 2000, approximately 66% of New Yorkers incarcerated in state prisons were from the five boroughs. The number dropped to about 50% in 2010 and was 42% in 2020.
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Schenectady County has the highest incarceration rate of any county in New York — and District Attorney Robert Carney said that’s mostly related to crime rates and urban density.
“We are dealing appropriately with the level of violence in our community by using prisons as something designed to protect the community from people who, if not incarcerated or rendered disabled by incarceration, do more harm to people would inflict,” he told Carney, who has been in office since 1990.
In 2019, Schenectady had the highest violent crime rate outside of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, according to preliminary data from the State Department of Criminal Justice Services. Meanwhile, Schenectady had higher rates of overall index crime and violent firearm crime, similar to other upstate counties.
When Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley presented data on Rochester’s shift in incarceration rates last fall, she said she was more concerned about rising homicide rates and her role in maintaining public safety.
Rochester saw 76 homicides last year, just down a notch from a record-breaking 81 homicides in 2021.
“As my colleagues in public safety recognize, we cannot be here,” Doorley said in a statement. “Together we must tackle the violence at its roots. That being said, my job as District Attorney is to bring violent criminals to justice… Our city is in crisis and I refuse to watch it burst into flames.”
Is politics to blame for prison population shift?
In 2010, VOCAL-NY, a nonprofit focused on criminal justice reform, worked to combat gerrymandering, which counted incarcerated individuals as residents where they were being held in prison — often in rural, white communities – and not where their houses were located.
When New York changed its laws about where incarcerated people were counted, the next step was to quantify which areas sent the most people to prisons, according to Nick Encalada-Malinowski, director of VOCAL-NY’s civil rights campaign.
He sees the number of detainees from the communities in the hinterland as a reflection of politics. When New York City enacted reforms involving changes in sentencing — particularly drug sentencing — other boroughs didn’t change as much, he said.
“What’s happening in a lot of counties is they’re locking people up instead of attending to their immediate needs,” he said. “You have people mainly in prison, but also in prison who just drive through. Nobody really elaborates on what got the person there.”
Jesse Jannetta, a senior policy fellow at the left-leaning think tank Urban Institute, said pushes to lower prison populations in the US received support due to falling crime rates. Political shifts in perceptions of crime could change that, he said.
“It’s a really open question whether there will be a movement towards greater support for incarceration,” he said. “We have learned a lot during this time about effective gun violence reduction approaches that are focused on, rather than relying on, widespread use of incarceration.”
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“He has a bag full of drugs for you. For him it is hope.”
When Sampson from Rochester started selling drugs as a teenager, he was supposed to help support his family. He recalls seeing his mother work tirelessly and feeling that it was never enough to meet all of her needs.
He said when officials and prosecutors who live outside neighborhoods marked as trouble spots come to enforce the law, they don’t take into account the reality of the people who live there.
“For you, he’s got a bag full of drugs,” Sampson said of someone like him who might have been picked up for sale. “It’s hope for him. It’s a way of keeping the roof over your head, putting food on your little sister’s plate. But there is no one who will see her for more than her circumstances.”
It has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep him locked up, Sampson said, and he often wonders where he might be if that money instead funds educational programs to help correct his mistake.
In the three years since returning home, Sampson has independently published several novels and developed a clothing line under his CHAOS Unlimited brand – success he credits in part to a mentor he found in prison, a wealthy and well-respected man who brought Sampson down convinced that he had potential to do good. It was the first time anyone of that size had believed in him, and he wonders what his life might have been like if he’d had that confirmation sooner.
“When I stand before the judge, he sees this little black kid in here on drugs … I don’t worry about it,” Sampson said. “It’s not fair. I’m worth more than the time they gave me. I’m worth more than they thought I was.”