Advocates and state lawmakers gathered Thursday in Rochester, Albany, Long Island, Westchester, and New York City to demand changes to how people are sentenced to prison.
At a rally at Foley Square, in Lower Manhattan, Democratic state Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn said this is a matter of public safety.
“These long prison sentences are not making our communities safer. They're not making any of us safer. They're not bringing justice or public safety,” Salazar said. “It's time for us to dismantle them and undo the harm that they have caused.”
Ahead of the 2024 legislative session, Salazar and others are calling for state lawmakers to pass three reform bills.
One bill would end the practice of mandatory minimum sentences. Another would allow judges to review cases of alleged excessive sentence time. And the third, called the Earned Time Act, would give inmates more opportunities to reduce their sentences through rehabilitation.
The latter, sponsored by Sen. Jeremy Cooney, D-Rochester, states that “encouraging incarcerated individuals to pursue personal transformation, and providing meaningful opportunities to do so, furthers the goal of rehabilitation.”
Cooney’s Democratic colleague, Sen. Samra Brouk has also joined in co-sponsoring all three bills.
Activists say it’s also about racial justice. Of the 34,000 people incarcerated in New York state, half are Black and 96% are men, according to a 2021 state report.
Charrisse Peace, a member of the Center for Community Alternatives, was one of a few dozen people who gathered in New York City. Her brother is in the 12th year of a 50-year sentence for attempted murder and multiple armed robberies in Queens. He was arrested in Buffalo.
Peace said she and her brother were greatly affected by childhood abuse and unstable living conditions as kids. And that had a significant impact on their life trajectory. But while she said her brother has made strides toward rehabilitation, the criminal justice system does not account for that in his sentence.
“People can change, they do change. We just need laws and guidelines to change so that people like my brother can have a second chance,” Peace said. “We have decades of research that proves isolation and excessive sentencing are neither a solution nor a deterrent to crime. We need the laws to catch up with the pace of humanity.”
