Criminal justice reform advocates in New York are making their case for fixes to the parole system in 2025.
Advocates and elected officials held rallies across the state on Thursday calling for the passage of state legislation allowing for parole release for incarcerated men and women who are 55 and older and who have served at least 15 consecutive years in prison.
They are also advocating for a bill that would push parole boards to focus on the extent to which parole applicants have been rehabilitated, rather than on the original crimes for which they’d been convicted.
The effort comes amid heightened attention to who gets shortened prison terms – or even avoids prosecution and prison altogether.
Last week, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, who bad been convicted on gun and tax charges, sparing him from imprisonment. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to pardon rioters who stormed the Capitol and beat police officers on Jan. 6, 2021.
Those pardons relate specifically to federal charges, while the reforms being pushed in New York pertain to those serving state sentences.
According to the group Release Aging People in Prison, more than 10,000 people who are currently in state prisons are over the age of 50. The vast majority are Black and Latino.
According to an October report by NYU’s Center on Race Inequality and the Law, the state parole board was 33% less likely to release a person of color than a white person between 2022 and June 2024, a period that falls under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s term.
Jared Chausow, a spokesperson for Release Aging People in Prison, said advocates for parole reform had met with aides to state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and felt encouraged about chances for passage, based on growing support within the Legislature.
“We just have to keep pushing and hope to get it across the finish line,” Chausow said.
Aides to Stewart-Cousins and Heastie did not immediately respond to queries about the legislation. Avi Small, a spokesperson for Hochul, said in an email the governor will “will review the legislation if it passes both houses of the Legislature.”
Advocates for reform include former district attorneys and groups representing crime victims, as well as formerly incarcerated people.
Alisha Kohn, who was incarcerated for 10 years and is the cofounder of the nonprofit group Prisoner Brain Trust, said she went before the parole board four times.
“Each denial,” she said in a statement, “took a piece of my humanity.”
Some advocates for reform have experienced the criminal justice system in multiple ways.
Tracie Adams, who grew up in Astoria and now lives in Rochester, served time in prison for selling heroin. She’s also a survivor of violence. In a statement, advocating for passage of the Elder Parole and Fair & Timely Parole bills, Adams said she witnessed the murder of her then-unborn child’s father 36 years ago.
“The pain was unbearable,” Adams said.
She said she turned to drugs and became suicidal. But she said she eventually saw that the man who had murdered her daughter’s father served a prison sentence, and showed after his release that he was “a changed person, helping support his family.”
She argued that the bills would help “reunited Black and brown” families, people who have been incarcerated and survivors.
“I can’t live in anger,” Adams said. “It eats at your heart. Since this man’s release from prison, my heart has only grown.”
The supporters also include former state Parole Board Commissioner Carol Shapiro, who said she’d met many people who had transformed their lives.
“That is the fundamental purpose of parole – to promote rehabilitation and evaluate people’s current readiness for release,” Shapiro said in a statement. “Sadly, the way it operates now leaves little hope for countless people who have done everything imaginable to make amends and prepare for their release, because commissioners so often deny people based on the one thing they cannot change, namely their crime of conviction.”
Assemblymember Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat and the lead sponsor of the Elder Parole bill, said the two bills had the support of a majority of his colleagues and took a “common-sense” approach.
“We can promote rehabilitation behind bars, reunite families, and improve safety for all by ensuring that people in prison have access to rigorous, case-by-case parole interviews that evaluate their rehabilitation, current readiness for release and whether they would comply with the law in the community,” Hoylman-Sigal said..