Pataki Will Unveil A Plan To Sharply Curtail Paroles

Gov. George Pataki, looking to burnish his tough-on-crime credentials, will ask the state Legislature to effectively end parole in New York state, officials said Tuesday.

The Pataki plan was to be unveiled today as the Republican governor, with an eye on a possible run for national office in 2000, delivers his fifth State of the State address to a joint session of the New York Legislature.

The governor also plans to propose an expansion of the state's DNA database, the genetic fingerprinting used to track down criminals, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The proposals were immediately criticized by a leading advocate for inmates' rights as a "one-size-fits-all type approach to all offenders" that would do little to increase public safety, but would make prisons more dangerous.

"My breath's about taken away," Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, said when told about Pataki's plans.

"If you take the possibility of parole away, that's one less reason for an inmate to behave himself or herself or to participate in programs," Gangi said.

The prisoner rights advocate said Pataki seemed to be "playing to a national political audience."

"When you couple this with the decision to grant no clemencies around Christmastime, it seems as if the governor is trying to add to his law-enforcement image," Gangi said.

Gangi and others had hoped that Pataki, in the wake of his easy reelection victory last year, might move to ease the state's draconian Rockefeller-era drug laws. Any such move, although not ruled out by Pataki aides, will not be part of his State of the State address, they said.

Pataki ran then-Gov. Mario Cuomo out of office in 1994 by pledging to bring back New York's death penalty and be tougher on crime.

In 1995, Pataki quickly signed legislation reinstating the death penalty and another measure that ended parole for repeat violent felons.

Last year, the Democratic-led state Assembly also bowed to Pataki's demands for tougher restrictions on parole for first-time violent felons. That legislation is known as Jenna's Law after the 22-year-old nursing student from the Syracuse area, Jenna Grieshaber, who was killed in her Albany apartment in 1997. Her parents had mounted a vigorous lobbying campaign for passage of the law. Prison parolee Nicholas Pryor was convicted of second-degree murder in September and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the slaying.

Under Pataki's latest plan, parole would be phased out by requiring that all new violent or non-violent felony convictions carry definite sentences _ such as 8 years instead of five-to-10 years _ with no chance of parole. They could continue to earn "good-time" while in prison, but would still be required to serve at least six-sevenths of their definite sentence before release and be subject to supervision once they leave prison.

Pataki aides insisted the continuation of good-time provisions was enough of an incentive to keep prisoners generally well-behaved.

Copyright 1999 Bergen Record Corp.

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