430 - Establishment and purpose of state institutions for the retarded in the department of correction.
§ 430. Establishment and purpose of state institutions for the retarded in the department of correction. 1. The department of correction may maintain one or more institutions to be used for the purpose of the care, treatment, training and custody of persons over sixteen years of age who are found to be mental defectives and who are committed thereto or placed therein as provided in this article. 2. The commissioner of correction may continue to maintain, as an institution for such purpose, any institution operated by the department pursuant to former articles sixteen-A, seventeen and seventeen-A of this chapter as authorized and required prior to the effective date of this act, and may add to or close any such institution, and may establish and maintain one or more new institutions for such purpose, in accordance with the needs of the department, provided any such action, other than the continuance of such formerly authorized institutions, is approved by the commissioner of mental hygiene, and provided that expenditures are within amounts made available therefor by appropriation. 3. The commissioner of correction shall promulgate rules and regulations designating the name and location of each institution to be used for such purpose and the sex, age range and other factors relevant to the classifications of persons who may be received therein. A copy of such rules and regulations shall be transmitted to the clerk of each court having jurisdiction to make a commitment under this article, and persons committed, placed or transferred as provided in this article shall be delivered to the proper institution as designated in such rules and regulations. 4. Wherever reference has been or hereafter will be made in any statute, judgment, sentence, commitment, court order or otherwise to the Beacon state institution, Eastern correctional institution, the institution for male defective delinquents at Napanoch, or to Albion state training school or the institution for mentally defective women at Albion, or to an institution for the retarded in the department of correction, such reference shall be deemed to be to and to include any institution designated in the rules and regulations of the department pursuant to this section. 5. The commissioner of correction shall have power to transfer inmates from one such institution to another and the provisions of law applicable to transfers between correctional facilities shall apply to any transfer between institutions for the retarded that may be ordered by the commissioner. 6. Any institution to be continued or to be established pursuant to this section shall be subject to the visitation and inspection of the state commission of correction and the head of the department of mental hygiene and their authorized representatives. 7. An institution for the retarded may be maintained or established in the same building or on the same premises as any other institution in the department and the commissioner of correction may provide by regulation for the use of any part of such other institution in the department by persons confined in an institution for the retarded continued or established pursuant to this section, but such persons shall at all times be kept separate and apart from the inmates of such other institution.