As important, it would make possible a rapid, affordable increase in prison capacity.

The Governor proposed spending $476 million over the next four years to raise the state's prison capacity by 8,800 beds.

Its prison capacity will soon soar to 144,000, from 47,000 five years ago.

The state increased its prison capacity by 50 percent in the 1980's.

It opened in 1983 and had a prison capacity of 1,256 as of 2006.

New York has added almost 30,000 cells in the last eight years, and by 1990, prison capacity will be more than 50,000.

At the end of 1985, only nine states were operating below 95 percent of their prison capacity.

The Governor has already increased the state's prison capacity in four years by about 10,000 inmates, to 39,000.

If necessary, he said, the state can find the money to continue expanding its prison capacity.

At the same time, America's prison capacity grew; it has quadrupled since 1980.