 Many of the 15 opened in 1988.Two of these, Riverview and Cape Vincent, were initially funded and owned by New York City to shuttle city prisoners by air, as a way to address the city's jail overpopulation crisis.From its peak in 1999, at 72,649, the total state prison population had dropped to 52,237 by August 1, 2016, a decrease of 28 percent.