N.Y. Correction Law § 89-a: Management of alternate correctional facilities

§ 89-a. 1. Management of alternate correctional facilities.

Superintendence, management and control of alternate correctional

facilities and the eligible incarcerated individuals housed therein

shall be as directed by the commissioner consistent with the following:

an alternate correctional facility shall be operated pursuant to rules

and regulations promulgated for such facilities by the commissioner in

consultation with the state commission of correction and the provisions

of the operation agreement. The commissioner shall operate such facility

insofar as practicable in the same manner as a general confinement

facility which houses medium security state incarcerated individuals.

Nothing herein, however, shall preclude the commissioner from enhancing

staffing or programming to accommodate the particular needs of eligible

incarcerated individuals pursuant to the operation agreement. No

incarcerated individual shall be housed in any alternate correctional

facility until such facility has been established in accordance with the

provisions of section eighty-nine of this article. The population in an

alternate correctional facility shall not exceed its design capacity of

approximately seven hundred eligible incarcerated individuals except

pursuant to variances permitted by law, rule or regulation or court

order.

2. Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, no variance

authorizing an alternate correctional facility to exceed its design

capacity shall be granted after March fifteenth, nineteen hundred

ninety-two unless the mayor of the city of New York submits, together

with the variance request, a certificate of emergency demonstrating the

need for such variance and that reasonable alternatives to the granting

of the variance do not exist, and containing a detailed summary of

measures that will be taken to restore compliance with such design

capacity. The chairman of the state commission of correction shall

transmit, in a timely manner, notice of such request to the chairmen of

the senate crime and correction committee and the assembly correction

committee.