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oth for people in the prison and for people in prisons in the surrounding area. Bedford Hills
houses DOCCS’ only RMU specifically for women. 35 DOCCS also contracts with hospitals in the
community to provide additional specialty care services.
In 2012, DOCCS was authorized to employ a total of just under 1,700 medical personnel,
including 100 physicians, 39 physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners, and almost 675
registered nurses.
DOCCS spends nearly $339.8 million on health care for incarcerated people each year, a figure
that accounts for about 11% of its total budget. 36 DOCCS’ budget for health services has been
reduced by 15% from 2010 to 2014. 37 Budget cuts have resulted in higher medical staff vacancy
rates and fewer specialty care contract services. 38
Of its total health care budget, DOCCS spends about $28.4 million (8%) on health care for
incarcerated women. DOCCS reports that the per capita health care cost for men in custody is
just under $6,000, and the per capita cost for women is just over $12,000. 39
Below are descriptions of the five prisons we visited to gather our main findings for this report,
along with charts presenting basic data we gathered from DOCCS about each prison. For
statistics on the racial composition of incarcerated women, we were able to gather information
only for the entire women’s prison population, not each individual facility. 40
Overview of Prisons February 2015 21