RAPP Campaign

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • EVENTS
  • PRESS
  • REPORTS
  • DONATE
You are here: Home / Archives for elders in prison

January 18, 2019

Gov. Cuomo’s FY 2020 Budget Proposal: No Compassion, No Reform

Share

Statement from Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP
• January 18, 2019 •

Governor Cuomo’s executive budget proposal, announced on January 15, does nothing to end the crisis of aging in prison and fails to address the Parole Board’s woeful understaffing. This proposal ignores decades of research and the detailed recommendations experts, advocates, and community members have repeatedly given. The governor has once again insulted our communities and put forward the exact same policy proposal he offered last year, now under a different name: “compassionate” parole.

There is nothing “compassionate” about the Governor’s supposedly new proposal. It narrowly and ineffectively expands New York’s medical parole program, and does nothing to ensure that more people will be released from prison. In fact, the proposal excludes entire groups of incarcerated people by categories of crime and sentence and allows the Parole Board to deny compassionate release based on the nature of someone’s offense, regardless of how sick they are. Our communities reject the view that some people are unworthy of compassion.

Further, the governor failed to heed our demands to fully staff the Parole Board with Commissioners who are committed to assessing people through their rehabilitation and readiness for release. The seven vacancies on the board have caused harmful delays, procedural unfairness and hopelessness among incarcerated people. Until the governor listens to advocates, implements fair, meaningful and inclusive parole reforms, and promotes release mechanisms that center transformation instead of punishment, New York will continue to have a criminal justice system that creates mass aging, despair and death in prison.

RAPP’s analysis of the governor’s proposals (including our recommendations):
New York State Proposed Budget FY 2020 • State Parole Board Budget & “Compassionate” Parole:

STATE PAROLE BOARD BUDGET:

FY 2019:

  • In FY 2019, the Governor proposed an increase in Parole Board staffing by allocating $305,000 for three additional Parole Commissioners. *
  • At the time of the FY 2019 proposal, there were 13 Commissioners and six vacancies on the Parole Board. ** 
  • Had the money been used to appoint and confirm three new Commissioners to the Parole Board, the proposed FY 2019 budget allocation would have increased the Board’s capacity to 16 Commissioners, leaving three remaining vacancies.

FY 2020:

  • In FY 2020, the Governor proposed no increase in money for Parole Board staffing or to the Board’s overall budget. ***
  • At the time of the FY 2020 proposal, the Parole Board has 12 Commissioners and seven vacancies.
  • The proposed FY 2020 budget allocation allows the Parole Board to increase its capacity to 16 Commissioners but does not allow for the Board to be fully staffed.

RAPP’s RECOMMENDATIONS (see bottom of page for testimony of RAPP and the Sentencing Project on the budget)

  • The Governor and legislature should ensure that the Parole Board has the money to increase Parole Board Commissioner staffing to complete capacity—19 Commissioners.
  • If current budget allocations allow for 16 Commissioners, then the Governor and legislature should increase the Parole Board’s funding by an additional $305,000 so that the Board can be fully staffed in 2019.

*Parole Board Commissioners make $101,600 per year (NYS Executive Law §169).

** See Assembly Yellow Book 2018 (p. 112): https://nyassembly.gov/Reports/WAM/2018yellow/2018files/2018yellowbook.pdf

*** See DOCCS FY 2020 Executive Budget Proposal (p. 4): https://www.budget.ny.gov/pubs/archive/fy20/exec/agencies/appropData/CorrectionsandCommunitySupervisionDepartmentof.pdf

CHANGES TO “COMPASSIONATE” RELEASE:

FY 2019: 

  • In FY 2019, the Governor proposed “geriatric” parole, a new program and extension of New York State’s medical parole program for incarcerated older people, aged 55 and older with serious medical conditions. * 

Eligibility: 

  • The proposal excluded people convicted of murder 1, aggravated murder, an attempt or conspiracy to commit either and those sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. 
  • To be eligible, incarcerated people must have served at least half of their sentence (half of a determinate sentence or half of the minimum sentence on an indeterminate sentence)

Process: 

  • The DOCCS Commissioner, at the request of the incarcerated person, their spouse, relative or attorney, can order an investigation to determine whether or not an assessment should be made to determine whether or not the person fits the medical standard for “geriatric” parole. 
  • After a physician conducts the assessment, it is reported back to the Commissioner, who decides whether or not to certify the incarcerated person for “geriatric” parole. 
  • If the Commissioner certifies the incarcerated person, then they refer the incarcerated person to the Parole Board within seven days of the certification. The Parole Board ultimately determines whether or not the person is released.

Release determination:

  • When determining whether or not to release someone on “geriatric” parole, the Parole Board must consider the factors they consider for all parole applicants. Additionally, they must consider the nature of the incarcerated person’s condition and level of care; the amount of time the incarcerated person must serve before becoming eligible for release; the incarcerated person’s current age and age at the time of the crime; and any other relevant factors.
  • Like for all parole applicants, the Board must provide notice to the sentencing court, district attorney, incarcerated person’s attorney, and the crime victim. They cannot grant “geriatric” parole until the expiration of a 30-day period that allows the aforementioned parties to comment.
  • The Board has total discretion with regard to the weight it applies to all the factors it must consider when determining whether or not to grant someone “geriatric” parole. They can justify a denial if they determine that release would “deprecate the seriousness of the crime as to undermine respect for the law.”

Post Release: 

  • If released, “geriatric” parole applicants would be supervised by DOCCS.
  • The Board may require, as a condition of release, that the released person remain under the care of a physician, hospital, nursing home, hospice, family care, or any other placement that can provide the appropriate medical care recommended by the medical assessment. 
  • A discharge plan must be completed with confirmation of the availability of the aforementioned placement.
  • If the incarcerated person has a cognitive illness that renders them unable to sign off on their discharge plan, and if they don’t have a guardian to do so, then the facility health services director would be empowered to be their guardian and sign off on discharge plans.

Reporting: 

  • The Parole Board Chair must annually report the following to leaders of the legislature: the number of people who have applied for “geriatric” parole; the number of people who have been granted “geriatric” parole; the nature of the illness of the applicants; the counties to which applicants were released and the nature of the community placement; the categories of reasons for denial; the number of people who recidivate post release.

* “Geriatric” parole medical standard: “An incarcerated person suffering from chronic or serious conditions, diseases, syndromes or infirmities, exacerbated by advanced age that has rendered the [person] so physically or cognitively debilitated or incapacitated that the ability to provide self-care within the environment of a correctional facility is substantially diminished.” 

FY 2020: 

  • Despite advocates’ deep analysis and detailed recommendations to “geriatric” parole, the Governor proposed “compassionate” parole in FY 2020, which, with the exception of the change in name, is exactly the same as the “geriatric” parole proposal from FY 2019. **

RAPP’s RECOMMENDATIONS:

  • Pass Elder Parole (S.8581/A6354A): Parole release programs for older people must be inclusive of all older people in prison, not just a small portion of people who are very sick and dying.  In place of this proposal, the Governor should champion real elder parole (S8581/A6354A), which would give parole consideration to all people aged 55 or older who have served 15 years or more in prison.
  • Remove “compassionate” and medical parole restrictions based on crime of conviction. If our state truly values compassion, mercy, and rehabilitation, then this new policy will be inclusive of all people regardless of their crime. By excluding certain people based on crime of conviction, New York guarantees that some older people will die in prison, effectively reinstating the death penalty in New York.
  • Remove the following proposed language from “compassionate” parole and all other statutes in the Executive Law, “release is not incompatible with the welfare of society and will not so deprecate the seriousness of the crime as to undermine respect for the law” (emphasis added). This punitive language is used in boilerplate fashion in the standard parole denials of tens of thousands of currently and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers. It allows the Parole Board to deny someone based solely on the nature of their crime.
  • Remove the Parole Board’s requirement to provide notice and a 30-day comment period to the sentencing court, district attorney, incarcerated person’s attorney, and the crime victim. 
  • Create rules that require facility medical providers to do initial “compassionate” parole screenings for people aged 55 and older with serious chronic illnesses to see if such incarcerated people might be eligible for medical parole. This process requirement could begin in the RMUs and DOCCS’ hospice units. 
  • Create more transparency and accountability. Annual reports on medical parole should include detailed summaries of the number of applicants who reached each phase in the application process, as well as HIPPA-compliant information on their conditions. All annual reports should be made available to the public and accessible on the Department of Corrections and Community Supervisions’ website.

** See FY 2020 New York State Executive Budget: Public Protection and General Government Article VII Legislation (p. 363-369): https://www.budget.ny.gov/pubs/archive/fy20/exec/agencies/appropData/CorrectionsandCommunitySupervisionDepartmentof.pdf

READ testimony of RAPP and the Sentencing Project delivered to the NYS Legislature’s Budget Hearings

Take action with RAPP to push back and demand real change in New York State • come to upcoming events, or email nyrappcampaign@gmail.com

Share

Filed Under: article, slideshow Tagged With: aging in prison, compassionate release, Cuomo budget, elders in prison, geriatric release, governor's budget, incarcerated elders, parole, prison reform

August 2, 2017

More Compassion Needed

Share

Medical parole, along with other release mechanisms, should be used more widely to reduce the population of older people in the New York’s prisons, said New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in a report in April 2017. Now Congress is saying something similar to the federal Bureau of Prisons:

Congress Wants to Know Why the BOP Won’t Let Elderly Prisoners Go Home to Die

“Compassionate release” is an excellent tool that the BOP refuses to use.

(From the “Hit and Run” blog on reason.com)

Mike Riggs

July 28, 2017

For years, federal prisoners and their advocates have begged the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to shorten the sentences of elderly and terminally ill offenders using a provision called “compassionate release.”

With the stroke of a pen, the BOP has the power to release men like Bruce Harrison, sentenced in 1994 to 50 years for delivering cocaine and marijuana at the behest of undercover federal agents. Now 65, Harrison suffers from a heart condition and has neuropathy in his feet that makes it difficult to walk. His official release date? 2037.

Then there are prisoners like Michael Hodge, who was sentenced in 2000 to 20 years for distributing marijuana while in possession of a firearm. Hodge developed pancreatic cancer while in prison and requested to be released so he could die in the company of family. That request was denied, and Hodge died behind bars in 2015, according to the Washington Post.

In 2013, the DOJ Office of Inspector General encouraged the BOP to send these kinds of prisoners home. Two years later, the office released a report that found “aging inmates engage in fewer misconduct incidents while incarcerated and have a lower rate of re-arrest once released.” In 2016, the U.S. Sentencing Commission went so far as to expand eligibility for the program in hopes the BOP would use it more.

But the BOP has largely ignored those recommendations. Yesterday, Congress demanded that the BOP explain why it continues to incarcerate geriatric and terminally ill prisoners who pose no threat to public safety and are unlikely to commit new crimes upon their release.

In a report accompanying the 2018 appropriations bill, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) ordered the BOP to turn over reams of data about the compassionate release program. Including:

  • the steps BOP has taken to implement the suggestions of the BOP Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Sentencing Commission
  • a detailed explanation as to which recommendations the BOP has not adopted, and why
  • the number of prisoners who applied for compassionate release in the last five years, as well as how many requests were granted, how many were denied, and why
  • how much time elapsed between each request and a decision from the BOP
  • the number of prisoners who died while waiting for the BOP to rule on their application for compassionate release

Only 10 percent of America’s prisoners are in federal prisons, but it is an increasingly old and sick population due to the disproportionately long sentences tied to federal drug offenses. As of June 2017, BOP facilities held 34,769 prisoners over the age of 51. More than 10,000 of those prisoners are over the age of 60.

Elderly prisoners pose financial and human rights problems.

“In fiscal year 2014, the BOP spent $1.1 billion on inmate medical care, an increase of almost 30 percent in 5 years,” BOP Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz wrote in prepared testimony to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. “One factor that has significantly contributed to the increase in medical costs is the sustained growth of an aging inmate population.” In its 2015 report, the DOJ OIG determined that facilities with the oldest populations spent $10,114 annually on medical care per prisoner, compared to $1,916 per prisoner in facilities with the youngest populations.

“It is difficult to climb to the upper bunk, walk up stairs, wait outside for pills, take showers in facilities without bars and even hear the commands to stand up for count or sit down when you’re told,” Human Rights Watch’s Jamie Fellner told the Washington Post. “Prisons simply are not physically designed to accommodate the infirmities that come with age.”

Shelby’s letter gives the BOP 60 days from the passage of the appropriations bill to submit its data to the committee.

“Elderly and sick prisoners cost taxpayers the most and threaten us the least, and there’s no good reason they should stay locked up or die behind bars because bureaucrats can’t or won’t let them go home to their families,” Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said in a statement. “It’s time for someone to get to the bottom of why the BOP’s answer is always no on compassionate release.”

This reporter worked for FAMM from 2013-2015

Share

Filed Under: article, slideshow, Uncategorized Tagged With: aging prison population, aging prisoners, compassionate release, elders in prison, incarcerated elders, incarceration of aging people, older people in prison

August 6, 2016

The NYS Parole Board Killed John MacKenzie

Share
The late John John MacKenzie in 2008, in a visiting room in the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in New York. Credit Matthew Chayes/Newsday

The late John John MacKenzie in 2008, in a visiting room in the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in New York. Credit Matthew Chayes/Newsday

John MacKenzie, whose repeated parole denials focused attention on the extreme cruelty of the New York State Parole Board, died on August 3rd in an apparent suicide in Fishkill Correctional Facility following his 10th parole denial after more than 40 years in prison. The denial came despite a standing order of contempt against the Board for their repeated rubber-stamp denials of Mr. MacKenzie’s applications for parole.

Mr. MacKenzie had filed a motion for contempt following a string of parole appearances and denials stretching over 15 years. In 2015, the court had ordered a de novo hearing after one such denial, citing the Board’s failure to do more than rehash the details of the original crime. When the new hearing merely echoed the earlier ones, Mr. MacKenzie sought the contempt citation. In her decision granting Mr. MacKenzie’s motion, Dutchess County Supreme Court Justice Maria G. Rosa wrote, “It is undisputed that it is unlawful for the parole Board to deny parole solely on the basis of the underlying conviction. Yet the court can reach no other conclusion but that this is exactly what the parole Board did in this case.”

Judge Rosa also wrote, “It is undisputed that this petitioner has a perfect institutional record for the past 35 years. This case begs the question, if parole isn’t granted to this petitioner, when and under what circumstances would it be granted?”

In late July, in the face of the standing contempt order, the New York State Parole Board proceeded to conduct another hearing which included parole commissioners specifically excluded from participating by the contempt order because of their past exhibited bias. This is criminal conduct and we demand that the offending parties be charged and arrested.

In June of this year, the New York Times wrote an editorial supporting this decision and release for John MacKenzie. Sadly, as the Times noted, Mr. MacKenzie’s case is not unique. Thousands of aging incarcerated people in New York State meet similar treatment and cruelty at the hands of the Board.

John MacKenzie fought valiantly for justice for himself and all those others. After the Board again denied his application for parole this past July, he just didn’t have any more energy left trying to face a parole board that has no respect for lawful procedure and is left to operate without restraint.

But we haven’t given up. We intend to increase the organizing of public pressure against these outlaws who have no respect for our communities.

There is another part of this tragedy that is sadly typical: the Nassau County Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association/PBA mobilized loudly against release each of the 10 times John MacKenzie met the Board, and the Board listened to them rather than to the broader community. Allowing the PBA to control parole decisions puts the vengeful cries of police above the voices of reason that say the purpose of parole should be to judge a person’s current character and the risk they pose—or, in the case of most incarcerated elders, the lack of risk they pose—to public safety. For far too long the parole process in this state has been dominated and controlled by the law enforcement establishment. The same police brutality that has killed so many Black people around the country has also killed John MacKenzie.

Rallies were held on August 8th in Albany and NYC to protest the NYS Board of Parole’s torture of John MacKenzie and all incarcerated people who are unreasonably denied release.

For more on the fight for justice for John MacKenzie and all incarcerated elders:

“Suicide of 70-Year-Old John MacKenzie After Tenth Parole Denial Illustrates Broken Parole System”
August 9, 2016: Victoria Law, The Village Voice

“Aging Prisoner’s Suicide Roils Parole Debate”
August 10, 2016: Renée Feltz, The Indypendent

“After Being Denied Parole 10 Times, Elderly Prisoner Allegedly Commits Suicide in Upstate Prison”
August 10, 2016: Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez and Renée Feltz, Democracy Now and democracynow.org

“Part 2: Calls Grow for NY Gov Cuomo to Reform Parole Board That Denies Eligible Prisoners”
August 11, 2016: Web Exclusive, democracynow.org

Share

Filed Under: article, slideshow Tagged With: aging prison, death by parole denial, elders in prison, John MacKenzie, parole, parole board in contempt, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, suicide parole denial

Attend our monthly meetings!

First Weds. of each month.
6:00-8:15 pm
See our events page for location
• Pizza, soda and meeting
• For more information: nyrappcampaign123@gmail.com

See Us on Social Media

CONTACT US

RAPP, 168 Canal St., 6th Fl., NY NY 10013; 631-885-3565; nyrappcampaign123@gmail.com

Blog Posts

  • Tell Gov. Cuomo: Release Aging People in Adirondack Prison
  • Media Advisories, Press Releases, Briefings
  • End death by incarceration & advance parole justice—Join us on April 21

Copyright © 2021 by RAPP Campaign · info(AT)rappcampaign(DOT)com