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One Year After Mujahid Farid’s Death, We Call for Fair & Timely Parole Act

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One year ago today, the world lost a leader in the movement to end mass incarceration. Mujahid Farid died on November 20, 2018, at 69 years old, surrounded by his RAPP and Parole Preparation Project family in his apartment in the Bronx. Farid was a Co-Founder and former Director of RAPP and a trailblazer in the struggle to release older people from prison and end life imprisonment. He was our friend, family member, comrade, and so often our inspiration for doing this work. While we celebrate Farid’s life and continue to mourn over his death, we are also motivated by his personal struggle with long-term incarceration and his broader efforts to get others free as we continue our work for transformative reforms to the parole release process in New York State.

 Release Aging People in Prison Campaign & Parole Preparation Project
Call for Fair & Timely Parole Act on One Year Anniversary of Mujahid Farid’s Death 

 Despite appearing before the Parole Board for the first time after receiving four college degrees, founding lifesaving in-prison programs, and having an overall prison record that exemplified transformation, the Board denied Farid parole release nine times over the course of 18 years. Instead of being released in his early-mid forties, Farid was finally released in his 60s after serving 33 years behind bars. In his short 7 years of life after his release, Farid and New Yorkers across the state helped make significant changes that led to more parole releases and reunited families. However, despite these significant gains, the very same issues that Farid faced before the Parole Board persist today.

Thousands of people in New York State prisons continue to languish behind bars years and decades beyond their minimum sentences. The Parole Board continues to deny parole to people who have transformed their lives and who could instantly become community leaders if only they had a chance at freedom. Everyday, people in New York State prisons are growing older, sick, and dying. This injustice must end once and for all. To that end, we call on the New York State legislature to pass the Fair & Timely Parole Act (S.497A/A.4346A) in the 2020 legislative session.

Fair & Timely Parole would ensure that the parole release process is New York State is based on who people are today, as opposed to just the nature of their crime of conviction. It provides for a fairer and more forward looking assessment of peoples’ current suitability for release and removes harmful language from state executive law that effectively allows the Parole Board to re-sentence people. We call on lawmakers in Albany to support and pass this bill as soon as they return to Albany on January 8th as one of many ways to honor Farid’s legacy and promote justice in New York State.

Please join us on January 14th, 2020, to rally for passage of this bill and to honor Farid’s legacy.

Photo of Mujahid Farid by Michelle Lewin

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Parole Justice Advances as Legislature Closes—But Not Far Enough

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Statement to our Communities from the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign and Parole Preparation Project

• As the 2019 New York State legislative session ends, we’re reflecting on the progress we’ve made in the movement for parole justice, and the work that is still to come.

One of our primary goals this year was to fully staff the New York State Parole Board with commissioners who embrace notions of redemption and believe firmly in rehabilitation. We wanted a Board of 19 people from therapeutic and clinical backgrounds—social workers, mental health counselors and medical professionals. We wanted a Board of people who came from and had deep personal ties to communities most impacted by violence and incarceration.

This yearlong campaign culminated late Wednesday night after a long and contentious parole commissioner confirmation process. Last week, Governor Cuomo sent the names of six new parole board appointments to the State Senate for confirmation. The six nominees included a former prosecutor, a current and former parole officer, a nonprofit executive, a pastor and a former public defender.

Among the nominees, we had the most serious reservations about candidate Richard Kratzenberg, a former corrections officer and life-long Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) employee. According to public records, Kratzenberg was also formerly a registered Republican (now party unaffiliated) and predominantly lived in conservative, rural and suburban towns in upstate New York. Further, in his confirmation interviews with Senators, he repeatedly conveyed an archaic belief that a person’s crime of conviction—and not their record of rehabilitation or transformation—should be the primary factor when making parole release determinations.

In an unprecedented and historical moment, due to fierce opposition from the advocacy community and our legislative allies, Kratzenberg’s appointment was never brought to the Senate floor for a vote, ending his potential nomination. Five of the six appointed candidates were then confirmed by the Senate on the last day of the legislative session. These proceedings marked the longest and most substantive parole commissioner confirmation hearing to date.

Despite our success in ending Kratzenberg’s nomination, and the relief it brought, we were disturbed by the overall appointment process. Half of the candidates put forward by the Governor came from prosecutorial or law enforcement backgrounds, and very few had any professional experience in trauma-informed care or other therapeutic work. Where were the nurses, substance-abuse counselors and mental health professionals?

The Cuomo administration also shared no information on how they sourced candidates, how they conducted their interviews, their criteria for ultimate selection or the timing of appointments until after their appointments were final. Despite repeated promises made by the governor’s staff in meetings over the past year to share the names with advocates, the appointees were only publicly made available by the press, less than 24 hours before the first confirmation hearings. Advocates, currently and formerly incarcerated people and their families—those whose lives literally hang in the balance—had no opportunity to vet the candidates, speak with their references and determine their suitability for this powerful position.

While we are hopeful that some of the new commissioners share our values and will give people in a prison a fair and meaningful opportunity for release, we are devastated that we cannot with confidence say to our incarcerated loved ones that this new cohort brings with it real hope for the future and the possibility of freedom.

Despite these ongoing obstacles and resistance, we feel proud that as a result of our advocacy efforts, the decision over who may serve as a parole commissioner is now a public process. We have transformed lawmakers’ understanding of the significance of Parole Board appointments and parole release more broadly. We have taught our legislators and the broader public that transformation and redemption are the best guarantee of public safety, not punishment and indefinite confinement.

In the coming year, we will continue our push to change the composition of the Parole Board and its enduringly punitive culture. We will work to ensure that future commissioners share the values of redemption and transformation, and believe in the humanity of all people in prison. We will also hold current and newly appointed commissioners accountable for their actions on the Board, by demanding more transparency, data and training. We will struggle until all of our loved ones are home.

Beyond our efforts to staff the Parole Board, both our legislative initiatives—Fair and Timely Parole (S.497) and Elder Parole (S.2144)—were voted out of the Senate Crime and Assembly Correction Committees and sourced powerful community support. However, an intense wave of opposition from police unions and other conservative forces made legislative leadership waver, ultimately stalling the bills. Sadly, the state legislature did not pass a single piece of legislation this session to improve or expand the parole release process.

We are also devastated that the legislature would not pass Humane Alternatives to Long-term Confinement (HALT) (A.2500 / S.1623), despite the fact that the bill had ample votes and tremendous public support. The last-minute, closed-door deal brokered between legislative leadership and Governor Cuomo is a poor excuse for reform. It does little to curtail the use of solitary confinement, excluding local jails entirely, and leaving intact other forms of isolation frequently employed by DOCCS.

Without these critical bills, lawmakers guaranteed that more New Yorkers will age, despair, and die behind bars. This is unacceptable. Next session, legislators must come back to Albany with the will to pass these bills, bring parole justice to New York State and end the torture of solitary confinement. The lives of countless New Yorkers depend on it.

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Here is the statement we sent out earlier this week, encouraging all to help prevent Kratzenberg from being appointed. Thank you to all who joined our effort:

Statement from Release Aging People in Prison Campaign and Parole Preparation Project Opposing the Confirmation of Richard Kratzenberg to the NYS Parole Board

Today, June 18 2019, the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee confirmed six new appointments put forward by Governor Cuomo for the New York State Parole Board.

Most concerning of the appointments is Richard Kratzenberg, a former corrections officer and long- time, in-prison parole officer. His entire 32-year career has been almost exclusively within the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, and there is no evidence he has community ties or personal or professional references outside of that setting. According to public records, Kratzenberg was also formerly a registered Republican (now party unaffiliated) and has predominantly lived in conservative, rural and suburban towns in upstate New York.

During this morning’s confirmation hearing, Kratzenberg cited both the nature of a person’s crime and their criminal record as two of the most important factors in parole release determinations. He spent little time discussing the role rehabilitation or personal transformation play in his assessments, and expressed strong support for current DOCCS programming, which many New Yorkers know is deeply inadequate. Further, Kratzenberg showed no nuanced understanding of the underlying causes of violence and crime, or the conditions and circumstances that often lead people to prison.

Undoubtedly, making determinations about a candidate’s suitability for this role on the Parole Board solely on the basis of their credentials and a short interview, is a dangerous thing to do. However, the timeline of events and the total lack of transparency in this nomination process leaves us no choice but to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Kratzenberg. Without any time to vet these candidates, we cannot in good conscience support the nomination of a person who has spent his entire career surveilling and supervising incarcerated people.

Mr. Kratzenberg is emblematic of parole in the Pataki-era, when commissioners came from primarily law enforcement and prosecutorial backgrounds, and the parole release process served as another mechanism to indefinitely punish people in prison. However, in the last eight years, parole has undergone dramatic reforms, resulting in fairer parole decisions, longer parole interviews and more hope. Kratzenbrg’s nomination jeopardizes that progress. If confirmed to the Parole Board, Mr. Kratzenberg would be appointed for a six-year term, longer than any other candidate appointed this year.

At the Senate Crime Committee meeting, Senators Myrie and Rivera voted against Mr. Kratzenberg’s appointment, and Senators Bailey and Gallivan voted without record. Mr. Kratzenberg’s nomination was narrowly voted out of the Crime Committee and referred to the Finance Committee for a second confirmation hearing.

If confirmed, Mr. Kratzenberg will have the power to deprive thousands of people of their freedom and to extend New York’s ugly, racist legacy of “tough-on-crime” policies and mass incarceration.

We urge members of the Finance Committee and the larger New York State Senate to vote no on his appointment.

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

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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

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Republicans Try to Bolster Mass Incarceration, Advocates Say No

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On October 1, 2018, a broad coalition of criminal justice advocates, formerly incarcerated people and community members gathered in Albany before a NYS Senate Republican hearing on the State Parole Board’s conduct and the Governor’s restoration of voting rights to more than 24,000 people on parole.

Advocates Rallied to Call Out Senate Republican Leadership’s Racist Political Agenda, Interference in Independent Parole Board Decisions and Peoples’ Right to Vote

WATCH the short press conference here

WATCH Parole Preparation Project and RAPP testimony here

Scroll to bottom of this page to read written testimony by RAPP, Parole Preparation Project, NYS Board of Parole Chair Tina Stanford, Former Albany Police Chief Brendan Cox, the Osborne Association, the Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and NYDOCCS acting commissioner Anthony Annucci

Advocates stood in support of voting rights for all people and increases in Parole Board release rates despite strong opposition from some Republican Senators. Advocates called out the racist political tactics of many Senate Republicans attempting to demonize and attack currently and formerly incarcerated people for political purposes and before the November elections. Advocates said that Senate Republican-led hearings were not rooted in concerns for  “public safety” or crime victims, but aimed at mobilizing their voting base in battleground Senate districts and scaring their constituency. Advocates said that the Parole Board should release more incarcerated people and that all people on parole should have the opportunity to vote, regardless of their crime. They stood with representatives of victims and survivors of crime to make clear that mass incarceration does not support healing, safety or justice for crime survivors and victims.

“New York State Senate Republican leaders need to stop playing political football with the lives of currently and formerly incarcerated people,” said Jose Hamza Saldana, Community Organizer with the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign. “After 38 years in prison, four parole denials and having just voted for the first time in my life, these political optics are a direct attack on me, my family and all incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men and women. There are thousands of parole-eligible and community-ready people languishing in prisons across the state, some for over three decades. The Parole Board should release them instead of re-sentencing them to death by incarceration.” Saldana continued, “Parolees are returning citizens. We were once a part of the problem but today and for a long time we have been an integral part of the solution. We are committed to working with faith and community-based organizations to develop viable strategies to address the social ills plaguing our communities. We will educate, organize, and advocate to retain our fundamental right to vote, and with the support of the community, we will vote our elders home. Let not one more of our elders die in prison.”

“Too often the actions public officials take in the name of crime victims, particularly in the name of survivors of sexual and domestic violence, do not line up with the actual needs and desires of the majority of survivors, especially survivors from communities that are most at risk,” said Chrys Ballerano, Senior Director of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “As an organization committed to healing and justice for all survivors and to truly ending sexual violence, NYSCASA recognizes that reliance on a biased and inherently reactive criminal justice system will not achieve these goals. Like many survivors, we would rather see public officials take action to ensure that survivors, their families, and communities have the comprehensive resources they need to heal and to thrive; that significant investments are made in community services and institutions that will prevent violence from happening in the first place; that people who commit harm are held accountable in a meaningful way that does not perpetuate a cycle of violence; and that people who commit harm have access to the services they need to stop committing harm.”

“As Ranking Member of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, I fully support Governor Cuomo’s decision to restore voting rights to those who have paid their debt to society,” said Senator Luis Sepulveda, who represents the 32nd District in the Bronx. “They also need more supportive programs – and opportunities – to help put and keep them on a stable and productive footing.” Sepulveda continued, “I also believe it is time for a major overhaul of the state’s Parole Board, which the New York Times in an in-depth investigative report called “a broken system.” To that end, I, the Senate Democratic Conference and the Ranking Member of the Senate Health Committee plan to hold a public forum this November in New York City on the issue of Parole Board reform, in which we hope to address a number of issues, including racial disparity of its membership and inadequate reporting of specific details in assessing its decisions.”

“The National Action Network was honored to have Gov. Cuomo announce his executive order, granting conditional voting rights to over 35,000 people on parole in the state of New York at our National Convention,” said Reverend Al Sharpton, President and Founder of National Action Network. “We have fought and will continue to fight for every person’s fundamental right to vote, despite their history in the justice system. Mass incarceration has only served as a smokescreen for systematized oppression and racist practices. Taking away someone’s right to a voice in our democracy only furthers their disempowerment in a system that has already misserved them for too long. As citizens of their communities, they deserve a right to their voice. Voting and fair parole practices are pillars of a fair restorative and rehabilitative system of justice.”

“The majority of incarcerated older adults have completed or even developed many progressive programs that promote education, constructive and critical thinking, and pro-social behaviors for the betterment of the community,” said James Royall, Re-Entry Advocate at Brooklyn Defender Services. “Rejoining their families and being part of the fabric of society is paramount to them. These are the very individuals who, after release, continue to make tremendous contributions to our society, whether as entrepreneurs, mentors, or loving family members. The state must accelerate the release of these elderly people and uphold the voting rights of all those who are justice-involved.”

“Parole is not an institution that belongs swept up in the ever changing political wind. It is an important tool that allows society to acknowledge the completion of an individual’s sentence, and their capacity to have used their time within the correctional facilities to reflect and change,” said Christopher E. Bromson, Executive Director of the Crime Victims Treatment Center and Co-Chair of the Downstate Coalition for Crime Victims Legislative Committee. “Just as victims have the capacity to heal, and can be offered support to move beyond the trauma of victimization, so too do offenders have the capacity to move beyond criminal behavior. Just as each survivor of a crime is an individual, so too is each incarcerated person. Policies barring the Parole Board from considering the important details of each individual case would exclude a vast number of survivors whose voices deserve to be heard. Many survivors view parole as a justified and appropriate end to an extremely painful experience.”

“These ill-timed hearings are clearly a political stunt orchestrated by Senate Republicans to score political points and to mobilize their voters prior to November’s general elections,” said State Senator Gustavo Rivera. “They are being held to cast a cloud of doubt against incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, even after they have paid their debt to society and have been rehabilitated. As a legislator who is fighting relentlessly to reform our criminal justice system, I will continue to champion common sense measures, such as my bill to implement discretionary release as part of the parole process, so that our State can truly improve the parole system for both victims and incarcerated individuals.”

“If people have served their time inside, then they deserve the rights afforded to them on the outside. Voting is one of those rights,” said Reverend Dr. Que English, Founder, NYC Clergy Roundtable. “The system once again is looking for ways to keep our people in bondage while free. Instead of looking for ways to keep people from their rights, let’s work to improve and enhance opportunities, education, housing, and other important supports.”

“This week, the current majority in the State Senate will hold hearings to reinforce their position that the Parole Board releases too many people. It is a sad day when elected officials call a system broken because parole board members are increasingly fulfilling their sworn duty to uphold the law. Instead of this politically-driven attack, our legislators could work towards a more effective—and just—system,” said Liz Gaynes, president and CEO of the Osborne Association. “We must fill the seven empty seats on the Parole Board so that overloaded Commissioners can thoroughly consider the unique circumstances in each case; digitize records so that Commissioners need not travel long distances to review a single copy of paper records, in some cases just minutes before a hearing that is held by video-conference; and move to in-person parole hearings that are fully staffed by three commissioners. Our current televised but not digitized process makes it even more difficult to assess fully the person before them, leading to thousands of people facing repeated denials despite the wishes of prosecutors, sentencing judges, and in many cases, the victims themselves.”

“The politics of fear and the false connection between race, dangerousness, and criminality have served as obstacles to parole justice for far too long,” said Anthony Thompson, Director of New York University Law Center on Race Inequality and the Law. “We should be working to change that paradigm, and implementing reforms that help get people who have paid their debt to society and changed their lives for the better out of prison and successfully reintegrated into their communities. Unreasonably curtailing parole releases and silencing the political voices of those who have been released from prison is bad policy, guaranteed to reproduce the unfairness and injustice we should all stand against.”

“The Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC) supports people who are on parole to have the right to vote, and urges that New York release more people on parole,” said Victor Pate, Community Organizer with the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement. “People who have served their time and been released on parole are New York citizens who should have an opportunity to vote for the representatives who make decisions affecting their and others’ lives. Regarding releases, for far too long the Parole Board has repeatedly denied release to those who have demonstrated their low risk, accomplishments and transformation, and readiness for release to the outside community. The Board needs to look at the people who sit before them and base their release decisions on evidence-based, forward-looking factors.”

“Denying me and others who have been justice-involved the right to vote does not help build communities,” said Edwin Santana, Campaign Leader with JustLeadershipUSA. “Restoring voting rights to people on parole provides a voice to those who have been disenfranchised by mass incarceration, overwhelmingly people of color. While Senate Republicans claim that the Parole Board has been “lenient,” anyone paying attention knows the Board is finally taking baby steps in the right direction, but still has miles to go. As a person who lived through multiple parole denials, I have experienced their total disregard for rehabilitation and sheer uselessness of the system Senate Republicans are looking to re-impose. I say let’s invest in forgiveness and healing in order to give our community the nurturing it needs to grow strong.”

“We need to trust our Parole Board professionals to release individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety,” said Chief Brendan Cox (Ret.) Albany Police Department. “We want them out of prison, contributing to society instead of costing us $100 a day that could be reinvested into programs that prevent crime.”

“Parole must be decided based on criteria such as rehabilitation, remorse, and growth,” said Allen Roskoff, President of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club. “Republican Senators’ desire to base parole release solely on revenge and retribution is wrong. It shows a lack of understanding of human potential and degrades the value of human life and the very concept of humanity.”

“It is disgraceful that Senate Republicans continue to oppose the restoration of voting rights for people on parole,” said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY. “Do Senate Republicans also think Dean Skelos should be denied the right to vote when he’s eventually paroled? Sheldon Silver? People on parole in New York deserve the right to vote, just like they do in many other states. It’s time for New York to catch up.”

“Limiting opportunities for people to fully engage in society based on their past mistakes makes little sense and is among the last vestiges of race-based voter suppression,” said Avery Bizzell, Community Organizer with Community Service Society. “Voting is the bedrock of democracy, the voice of the people. For individuals to successfully thrive in our communities, they must have the opportunity to vote and be fully empowered stakeholders.”

MEDIA CONTACT: Dave George, ddgeorge23@gmail.com, (631) 885-3565

Watch the press conference here

Full Albany press statement here

Read our press statement opposing the Senate Republicans’ Long Island hearing on Oct. 2, 2018

Written Testimony of Jose Hamza Saldana, RAPP

Written Testimony of Michelle Lewin, Parole Preparation Project

Written Testimony of Tina Stanford, Chair, NYS Board of Parole

Written Testimony of Elizabeth Gaynes of the Osborne Association

Written Testimony of Chrys Ballerano of the NYS Coalition Against Sexual Violence

Written Testimony of Chief Brendan Cox (Ret.) of the Albany, NY Police Dept.

Written Testimony of Anthony Annucci, Acting Commissioner, NYS Dept. of Corrections and Community Supervision

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NYS Parole Board report shows justice still unfulfilled

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August 14, 2018: Along with the Parole Preparation Project, RAPP today released our latest report, The New York State Parole Board: Failures in Staffing and Performance.

“No one can appreciate the importance of sitting in those rooms making liberty decisions except those who sit on either side of the table. I applaud your work. Staff shortages result in applicants seeing see the same commissioners again and again, and they never get a date.” —Barbara Treen, former commissioner, NYS Board of Parole

Over the past two years, RAPP and other advocates and community members have succeeded in winning some changes in the practices of the New York State Parole Board, so that some decisions are now based in rehabilitation and transformation—who a person is today, as opposed to who they were decades ago when their crime was committed. This has begun to bring the Board into line with the law and best practices advocated by criminal justice experts.

But these advances continue to be undercut by other trends in the Board, including understaffing and the presence of several commissioners who continue to resist practices based in rehabilitation. These commissioners enable powerful, reactionary law enforcement forces to interfere in release decisions, illegally turning parole-eligible sentences into de facto life without parole.

Our new report exposes the horrific practices of the New York State Parole Board and their impact on incarcerated people across New York State.

You can read more coverage of the report in the Daily News

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Trump, Lynch, And Who We Call Animals: A Safety Alert

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• BY SUSIE DAY • Did you hear Trump call undocumented immigrants animals? It’s stirring up — rightly — a lot of concern. Among humans, “animal” is the essential, go-to word to deprive people of their humanity. It’s the permission some people give themselves to ridicule, enslave, and commit genocide against other people. “Animal” is a term we read as a danger signal, even in a society such as ours, which was built on ridicule, enslavement, and genocide. And “animal” is often used by law enforcement to describe anyone accused of assaulting a police officer. Interesting, how we’ve let this one go.

Over and over, my friend Herman Bell, who spent almost 45 years in New York State maximum-security prisons, has been called an animal. Herman was convicted in 1975 of killing two New York City police officers and sentenced to 25-to-life — meaning that, after 25 years, he was eligible for parole. Thanks to his accomplishments and compassion over the years; thanks to advances in state parole regulations weighing who a person has become and not just the “nature of the original offense”; thanks to enormous love from family and friends, Herman was released in April, after his eighth appearance before the Parole Board.

But this column isn’t about Herman. It’s instead about the institutions and the people who wanted him to die slowly over more decades in prison. As an animal.

When Herman’s parole decision came down last March, Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), declared at a press conference, “We’re gonna get you, we don’t care why you’re behind bars… We just care that you are behind bars.” The PBA also issued a “safety alert” to NYPD officers: “In the event of Bell’s release, all PBA members are urged to remain vigilant, both on- and off-duty, to ensure their own safety and to provide back-up to any other law enforcement officers in their vicinity.”

The danger to public safety posed by Herman Bell out of prison roughly approximates the danger posed by 99.6 percent of undocumented immigrants inside US borders: NONE.

The real danger — which most of us are sleeping on — is the vigilante mentality that powers our law enforcement. Since way before Stonewall, cops have rounded up queers; they can still arrest and brutalize us at street protests. But queer communities don’t necessarily see how the cops also work alongside the prison system. So here’s another safety alert; this one’s about the police.

Be on the lookout for:

Use of Scathing Pejoratives: Words like “monster,” “vermin,” “blood-thirsty,” and, of course, “animal” used by police as synonyms for actual people accused or convicted of crimes. This degree of loathing is designed to authorize the deepest kind of lynch-mob contempt. These names are, in fact, used so often to describe people of color that you wonder if they’re simply society’s latest ploy to get away with saying “n*gg*r.”

Lurid Press Coverage: This is the aorta through which “law-and-order” pejoratives and vigilantism enter the public bloodstream. Mainstream media repeat — unquestioned and un-fact-checked — whatever police officials tell them. “Cold-blooded cop-killer” headlines boost ratings. Meanwhile, the press is too busy buying tough-on-crime accounts wholesale to ask journalism-101 questions, such as why a law officer such as Pat Lynch threatening, “We’re gonna get you, we don’t care why you’re behind bars” isn’t … well … illegal?

Copying down “cop-killer” denunciations, reporters seldom bother to question if adjectives like “cold-blooded” and “monster” are close to accurate. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, on hearing of Herman’s parole, wrote that Herman should remain in prison because, “His mind has not changed, his heart has not opened…” Mainstream news outlets never asked how James O’Neill knew this.

It’s inconsequential that O’Neill (also Lynch, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and any other official denouncing Herman’s parole) never met Herman Bell or evinced an interest in records describing how Herman’s changed over the years. This sidelining of journalistic curiosity in favor of garish headlines is the foundation of media and police collusion. Through it, we’re bullied out of wondering if “criminals” might actually be people a little like ourselves.

Backlash Against New Parole Board Regulations: In another press conference, Patrick Lynch lamented the “coup” at the State Parole Board, where “right-minded” commissioners were ousted and replaced by those with an agenda. Already, conservative state senators, who only noticed progressive regulation changes after Herman’s parole, have passed several bills overturning these advances.

Although the bills still need Assembly approval, they include regressions such as mandatory life sentences without parole for a broad range of offenses; requiring the Parole Board to accept statements from third parties — specifically, the police — which would remain confidential; and extending the waiting period between prisoners’ parole applications from two to five years.

These bills would enforce a penal structure denying mercy and equality to thousands of human beings who, for a moment, had hopes of not being seen as animals. Already, tabloids are carrying stories about why the Parole Board should not make the Herman Bell mistake and should deny parole to other “cop-killers.” Already, the PBA has bought radio ads to keep Herman’s co-defendant in prison for the rest of his life.

Assuming the Life of a Police Officer Weighs More than that of a Civilian: In a May 17 editorial titled, “Will every cop-killer in New York now go free?”, the New York Post writes, “cop-killers strike at the core of public safety. That’s why there was long a presumption against ever granting them parole.

But the PBA’S “public safety” means protection from “animals” — not protection for people like Eric Garner or Sandra Bland. It encourages a “worst-of-the-worst” category, which, once established, endangers everyone’s humanity. Recently, in The New Yorker, Masha Gessen wrote about the plight of immigrants and refugees, of Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the right to have rights.” These rights, in theory, “belong to every person by virtue of existence.”

So either we all have this right to have rights or we buy into a safety that ultimately removes our individual agency. Accepting that we don’t matter as much as the person in blue with the badge and the gun provides a cornerstone of an oncoming police state. And — remembering why Hannah Arendt wrote in the first place — that kind of thing has happened before.

This article appears at Gay City News/ http://gaycitynews.nyc/ along with others by Susie Day on parole justice and the case of Herman Bell.

 

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A New Chapter in Parole for New York State?

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An Amsterdam News article, “Exposing the New York State Parole Board,” has an encouraging ending
(see two UPDATES at end of article)

The Amsterdam News, June 8, 2017
by The Northeast Political Prisoner Coalition

(See updates at end of article)

Over the past several years, there has been a great deal of examination and public outcry about mass incarceration and its damaging impact on poor and working-class Black/Brown families and communities. What hasn’t had as much outcry or examination is the covert murkiness, impunity and absolute authority in which the New York State Parole Board and its recalcitrant commissioners operate as judge, jury and executioner over the lives of thousands of incarcerated individuals and their families.

The New York State Parole Board should, by law, comprise 19 commissioners, all appointed by the governor. The current Board has only 12 commissioners. The absence of the other seven has created a backlog and resulted in parole appearances that consist of a 10-minute video conference before a three-person panel. Three of the current commissioners are holdovers from the George Pataki administration, a Republican whose policy agenda favored locking people up for life.

For an incarcerated man or woman to be parole eligible, the individual must undergo a “risk and needs assessment” performance test. This test is a readiness instrument that measures who they are today, their prison record, educational, psychological and sociological accomplishments, and what, if any, risk the individual poses for committing a new crime if released. When applied justly and appropriately, the risk and needs assessment offers an incarcerated individual a fair shot at release. The practice, however, is anything but. Instead, parole commissioners routinely and perniciously ignore the risk and needs assessment findings, and rubber stamp the denial of 80 percent of those who appear based on the “nature of the crime” and a bias that their release “would so deprecate the law.”

Over the past approximately two decades, these repeated parole denials have caused a 98 percent increase in the number of people over the age of 50 incarcerated in the NYS prison system. These are people who have been in prison for 25 or more years, and who according to the state’s own research, are the least likely to engage in recidivism. They are persistently denied parole by a Board that continues to re-sentence them 10, 15 and, in some cases, 24 years past the sentence imposed on them by the judge. More often than not, a parole denial comes with a “two-year hit,” which means they cannot appear again for another two years. New legislation, already approved in the Senate, is now being proposed to extend the two-year hit to a five-year hit. Readers can object to such an extension by calling their elected representatives in the New York State Assembly.

For thousands of husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunties and uncles, sisters and brothers across this state, these encounters with the parole board turn an otherwise hopeful experience, full of the possibility of healing and renewal, into one of perpetual abuse, disappointment, separation, hopelessness, punishment and state violence.

How do we heal this trauma, violence and devastation inflicted on these families and communities by the mass incarceration and perpetual parole denial of their loved ones? We start by applying community and political pressure on Governor Cuomo to appoint commissioners who are educators, faith-based community leaders and social workers with an interest in reinvesting, rebuilding and rehabilitating the communities incarcerated people will return home to, and not the current practice of appointing current and former law enforcement (i.e., police officers, prosecutors or judges) personnel whose intent is to keep people in prison for life. We ask readers to petition Governor Cuomo not to reappoint commissioners James Ferguson, Kevin Ludlow, William Smith, Otis Cruse or Julie Smith. All of them have consistently demonstrated their refusal to follow the law and a blatant disregard for the communities in need of their loved ones return.

UPDATE #1

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

  • Of the five Commissioners whose terms expired this year only two were reappointed: Otis Cruse and William Smith. While we celebrate the fact that only two Commissioners were reappointed, it is unacceptable that the Governor and Senate re-appointed William Smith. Appointed by Gov Pataki, Smith has been on the Board for over 20 years and has a record of humiliating people and denying release to those who have served decades in prison, transformed their lives, and pose little or no risk to society.
  • Three Commissioners were NOT reappointed: Ferguson, Ludlow and Julie Smith. Ferguson and Ludlow were both Pataki appointees, and all three frequently disregarded the humanity of people in prison and violated the law.
  • Additionally, Parole Commissioner Lisa Elovich resigned from the Board, despite the fact that her term does not expire until 2019. Elovich was also a Pataki-era appointee. We believe as a result of your advocacy efforts and continued calls to the Governor’s office and legislature, she felt pressure to leave the Board. Now, only one Pataki-era appointee will remain on the Board by the end of the year.
  • Six new Parole Commissioners were appointed for the first time: Caryne Demosthenes, Carol Shapiro, Tana Agostini, Erik Berliner, Tyece Drake, and Charles Davis. While only time will tell whether these new appointees perform their duties correctly and justly, many of them more closely reflect the identities and experiences of people in prison, and come from a broader range of professional backgrounds.

OTHER VICTORIES

We defeated Lorraine’s Law (A2350A) in the Assembly (after it had passed the Senate as S2997-A): As many of you know, a devastating bill that increased the time between Parole Board hearings from 2 years to up to 5 years for people convicted of the most serious crimes had a lot of support in the legislature. However, as a result of your efforts, it was narrowly defeated.

Most importantly, we profoundly shaped the confirmation process of new Commissioners, exposed the many injustices and cronyism inherent in the process, educated our legislators about the impact of parole on our loved ones, and for the first time, garnered serious opposition on the Senate floor. In an unprecedented moment, Senators on the Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee that confirms the appointments, voiced strong opposition to the reappointment of William Smith. The opposition continued onto the larger Senate floor, where Senators dissented and 19 people ultimately voted NO on Smith’s reappointment! Although not enough to defeat his reappointment, such a public rejection of a long-standing Commissioner suggests a new and dramatic shift in parole policy. For example, watch this short video of Senator Gustavo Rivera’s speech to the Senate on the purpose and practice of parole.

UPDATE #2

On September 27, 2017, the new Board of Parole regulations became available. While still far from what justice and good governance demand, these regulations do categorize risk and needs assessments as a “guiding principle” for release decisions, rather than as one on a list of “factors” to be considered.

Along with the newly appointed commissioners, the new regs could allow more incarcerated people to win release on parole, as their records and achievements mandate. BUT: It will take continuing pressure from the community to ensure that the new regs and the new commissioners are not just window dressing to make a cruel, unforgiving, and unjust parole system look less ugly.

 

UPDATE #3

On March 13, 2018, a widely respected elder, Herman Bell, was granted parole, having met all the criteria for release according to his sentence.  The parole commissioners recognized his progress after serving nearly 45 years in prison and granted his parole application.  He is looking forward to being reunited with his family and friends.  We welcome him home.

On March 19, 2018, responding to a solid week of attacks on the decision—and on Mr. Bell himself—by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and other law enforcement organizations, the New York Times wrote this editorial in favor of Mr. Bell’s release:

Don’t Let Parole Become a Meaningless Concept
by the New York Times Editorial Board

Some felt Herman Bell deserved execution or at least a prison sentence of life without parole, but in mid-1970s New York those weren’t options. No question, Mr. Bell’s crime was a despicable assault on society itself. In 1971, with fellow Black Liberation Army radicals, he ambushed two police officers in Harlem, repeatedly and fatally shooting them as part of a war they had declared on the United States.

Rather than being condemned to prison forever, Mr. Bell got 25 years to life. Now, at 70, and after more than 44 years behind bars, he has been granted parole by a New York State board, which found he had expressed “regret and remorse.” Long in coming though the statement was, he is said to have told board members this month: “There was nothing political about the act, as much as I thought at the time. It was murder and horribly wrong.” In mid-April, he could be freed from his maximum-security prison in the Hudson Valley.

Despite angry reactions from law enforcement groups and others, the process worked as it should if parole is to amount to more than an empty word. Our prisons call themselves “correctional facilities.” The New York board found that Mr. Bell had indeed been corrected, based on a solid disciplinary record, a “sturdy network of supporters” and a likelihood of his now leading a “law-abiding life.” To lock him up forever even though deemed a changed man is to make a mockery of his sentence: “25 years to life” is not supposed to be cynical code for “life.”

Parole is understandably fraught in cases of slain police officers. Emotions run high, as does posturing by the politically powerful. In New York, a notable example involves two women who were part of a leftist band that killed two police officers and a guard during a bungled robbery of a Brink’s armored car in 1981.

Though plainly guilty of involvement in the crime, neither of the women, Kathy Boudin and Judith Clark, fired a shot. They both went on to become model prisoners who expressed remorse for their actions. Ms. Boudin was paroled in 2003. But the road to freedom has been rockier for Ms. Clark, denied parole once again last year despite having had her sentence commuted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Bell case is a reminder of how brutal New York could be in the early 1970s, an era of supercharged racial and political hostilities. Mr. Bell’s victims, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, were among 12 police officers in the city shot to death in 1971. In contrast, it has taken the past 13 years to record 12 officer deaths. (The New York City police, too, are now far more restrained, fatally shooting eight criminal suspects in a typical year, compared with the 1971 toll of 93.)

Officer Piagentini’s widow, Diane, remains implacably opposed to freeing Mr. Bell. The parole board’s decision, she said, “devalues the life of my brave husband” and “betrayed the trust” of police families. But relatives of Officer Jones have been more forgiving. In a 2014 interviewwith The Daily News, Waverly Jones Jr. said, “This man has been in prison for over 30 years and hasn’t gotten into so much as an argument.” To continue to lock him up, Mr. Jones said, “would only be for revenge.”

He’s right. And vengeance is not supposed to guide a system of justice.

 

Take Action to Help Keep Advancing Parole Justice

Come to our meetings and get involved: Email us to learn more about joining our campaign and attending meetings in your area.

Attend a meeting of Challenging Incarceration. To find out when and where, email nyrappcampaign@gmail.com.

  • Capitol Region: CAAMI (Capital Area Against Mass Incarceration) has a Parole Watch team who attend every public Parole Board meeting. CAAMI’s work also extends far beyond parole. Email nycaami@gmail.com for more info.

THANK YOU!

Again, we want to thank you all for your powerful and persistent efforts these past few weeks. We are entering a new moment in the movement for parole justice. We have the attention of our legislators and Governor and we have each other!

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A Former Parole Commissioner on Aging & Changing

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by Barbara Hanson Treen (NYS Parole Commissioner for 12 years)

We’ve heard for years that all the cells in our bodies regenerate every seven to ten years. Can we assume then, that our moral and emotional compasses are also capable of transforming over time? Not according to parole commissioners who keep large numbers of aging long-termers warehoused in prison, based only on what individuals did years ago, rather than who they are now.

In New York State, people of conscience are watching to see how six recent appointees to the Board of Parole will make release decisions. Will they respect transformation? It is too late for John MacKenzie, a model prisoner who died by suicide at the age of 70 after 40 years incarcerated and ten repeated parole denials. Tragically, John Mackenzie is the human sacrifice that underscores the broken parole system.

As a NYS Parole Commissioner for 12 years some time ago, it was unusual for me to meet a parole candidate over the age of 50. Last year, of 52,344 women and men in the state’s correctional facilities, 10,140 (19%) were 50 and older, despite the decline in the overall prison population. The number of elderly incarcerated has increased 98% since 2000, at least partially reflecting the board’s unwillingness to release in spite of parole applicants having met their minimum allowable sentence. Life on the back of a sentence appears to give a pass to the Commissioners, who have been unwilling to accept transformation in human behavior and are too politically motivated to practice their job, risk assessment. Thus we have prison hospitals and infirmaries filled with long-termers languishing through the years even though their risk of reoffending is 1%. And the health care costs for the prisons have increased 20 percent from three years ago to $380 million dollars today—an increase of $64.5 million.

If the parole board doesn’t trust in people’s transformation—supported by their proof of advanced education, program involvement, clean disciplinary records and so on—perhaps they’ll believe in new evidence that is also coming of age from a field of science through brain scan research: neuroplasticity. Simply stated, it is a scientific development that shows that the brain has the ability to change and heal as it is subjected to new experiences. Much is coming to light in the medical community about this study with implications of change for ADD and Parkinson’s Disease.

But as important in our criminal justice community is the possibility that people can become entirely different in their behaviors. This change occurs in the brain on its own physically with exposure to life’s surrounding stimulus over time. I would guess that 80% of 77,000 interviews I participated in as a commissioner were with people who suffered early life traumas such as sex abuse, violence, and concussions. Our older imprisoned have gained maturity, non-violent adaptive behaviors and more often the punishing effect of their crimes on them and their families, leading them to introspection over time. They become different people by demonstrating different responses.

The repeat parole hearings of candidates echo the retelling of the crimes that brought them to these places, crimes that are most often horrendous. And while the penalties for these crimes can never satisfy the need to restore a victim or render survivors of crime whole, the court-sanctioned sentence is our accepted legal calibration for punishment.

Can continuing denials amounting to 30 or 33 years beyond a sentence change the crime? Can 10, 13, 17 times before the board expressing redemption and remorse make a person any more prepared to face the community? No, it makes them older and sicker and some don’t even recall why they are there.

These aged are mostly invisible people. On paper, we don’t see their limps, their dementia, their physical impairments, their addled senses, their diminished capacities. They bring with them all the hope it takes to describe their transformation and regret to the parole board, although it will probably result in the same denial based on the “nature of the crime.” And the category of those aging, the women and men aged 50 and older, grows.

Perhaps the Parole Board can examine the possibility of the growth of their own hearts and brains among their new colleagues.

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Social Workers Should Be Appointed to the Parole Board

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By Shazzia Hines, LMSW and RAPP Organizer

• In December 2016, a front-page article in The New York Times said, “The New York State Board of Parole often operates like an assembly line, with inmates given mere minutes to make a case for their freedom. It is an impersonal process: Commissioners see dozens of cases a day, and most hearings are conducted via video conference. Decisions are frequently boilerplate and can sometimes seem arbitrary.”

To help remedy this problem, the parole board may want to consider hiring New York State Licensed Master’s Social Workers as parole commissioners. I believe that social workers are the most qualified professionals to take up a role that requires parole board members to conduct fair and comprehensive assessments to determine whether an incarcerated person is prepared to be released with conditions including community supervision. If I were an incarcerated person going for a parole hearing, I would only pray that the people reviewing my case were ethically responsible to value the dignity and worth of human beings as a basic professional guideline and code of conduct. Social workers are such people.

That New York Times article (“For Blacks Facing Parole, Signs of A Broken System”) makes it clear that the current parole board members are overpaid, under-qualified, and culturally incompetent. According to The Times, “Board members are mainly from upstate, earn more than $100,000 annually and hold their positions for years. They tend to have backgrounds in law enforcement rather than rehabilitation. Most are white; there is currently only one black man, and there are no Latino men.”

Contrast this with the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, which states, under the section on the dignity and worth of human beings: “Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers promote clients’ socially responsible self-determination. Social workers seek to enhance clients’ capacity and opportunity to change and to address their own needs. Social workers are cognizant of their dual responsibility to clients and to the broader society. They seek to resolve conflicts between clients’ interests and the broader society’s interests in a socially responsible manner consistent with the values, ethical principles, and ethical standards of the profession.”

By the time they attend a parole hearing, most of our incarcerated elderly have long since rehabilitated themselves by taking college courses and creating programs demonstrating positive leadership. The fact that these elderly incarcerated women and men are consistently denied release on parole shows that the parole board lacks humility and competence. It exemplifies the board’s professional inability to adequately and comprehensively assess a person’s readiness for parole.

The parole board should function in a way that reflects those principles of social work—to look at a person as an individual, honoring their capacity to change and determining whether to release them based on who they are now and what they can offer to society. Parole boards should also act in the interest of society as a whole, meaning they should promote fairness and healing over revenge and hatred.

I conclude with a call to action for Governor Andrew Cuomo to appoint licensed masters level professional social workers, as five of the current parole commissioners’ terms are due to expire this year.

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