RAPP Campaign
Release Aging People in Prison Campaign
Karen Juanita Carrillo, Amsterdam Newst — Dr. Johanna Fernández, the Dominican American historian, prison abolitionist, and movement scholar, died on July 30, 2026, after a years-long struggle with non-small cell lung cancer. She was 55...
Johanna Fernández, Jose Saldańa, susie day, CounterPumch — Commemorating Johanna Fernández • her interview with RAPP’s Jose Saldaña, conducted in 2020
Renée Feltz, Truthout — World-renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is 72 years old, suffering multiple health problems, and may die in prison, say legal advocates in a new request they filed today that asks the United Nations to support his release. Abu-Jamal’s legal team decided to appeal to the UN after having exhausted nearly every legal avenue for relief available in the United States. ¶ Abu-Jamal was a Black Panther and journalist when he was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, and he has always maintained his innocence. His death sentence was overturned in 2001, and in 2011, Pennsylvania resentenced him to life without parole. Since then, “each attempt to secure Mr. Abu-Jamal a new and fair trial has been rejected,” argues a submission his lawyer Bret Grote and others made on his behalf to the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention....
Abolitionist Law Center — (PHILADELPHIA) For more than 44 years, U.S. citizen Mumia Abu-Jamal has been arbitrarily detained in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Today, Abolitionist Law Center and a national coalition of other human rights organizations – American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, and Release Aging People in Prison Campaign – submitted a petition to a United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention seeking relief...
Roni Minter, Times Union — "Like many New Yorkers, I believed that if you organized, educated, testified, built support and convinced enough lawmakers, your bill would rise or fall through a transparent public process. Then I learned about the Senate's internal 'working group.'" ...
Holden Draper, Hoodline — As the legislative session wound down in Albany, lawmakers quietly signed off on a bill that could change the first days of freedom for thousands of New Yorkers leaving jails and prisons. The measure aims to plug a deadly gap in health care coverage the moment someone walks out the gate, a move that reentry advocates are cheering even as their push for broader parole reforms hit a wall...
Ethan Geringer-Sameth, Crain's NY Business — State lawmakers passed a bill to help incarcerated individuals receive Medicaid coverage upon release, but did nothing for aging prisoners wasting away behind bars and racking up the state’s medical tab...
Nick Encalada-Malinowski, NY Daily News — With multiple delays and policy maneuvering, Gov. Hochul bullied the Legislature into the budget of her liking....
Tandy Lau, Amsterdam News — Legislation supporting parole reform in New York State is gaining momentum, signaling good news for advocates who are seeking to reduce deaths through releasing incarcerated people before their maximum sentence if they can demonstrate their rehabilitation. As the Amsterdam News reported recently, 2026 marks the deadliest start in Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) facilities in the past six years and how some advocates are fighting to ensure recent oversight laws are enacted....
Johan Sheridan, WWLP-22News — NY Governor Kathy Hochul pardoned 19 formerly incarcerated individuals, but faced criticism from criminal justice advocates for not commuting the sentences of anyone currently incarcerated, especially women in honor of Mother's Day. As of May 2026, the state's prison system houses 34,066 inmates, and prison reformers are raising alarms about increasing deaths within state prison facilities....
Debra Sterling Walters • Theresa Grady, Legal Aid Radio — On this episode of Legal Aid Radio, Theresa Grady shares the story of her husband, Morris Edward Grady, her first love and lifelong partner, whose life was cut short while incarcerated. Through heartbreak, she continues to rise as a voice for justice, fighting for dignity and fair treatment for aging people behind bars. It’s a powerful reminder that behind every sentence is a human being… and behind every loss is a family still learning how to heal...
Front Page Detective Staff, Front Page Detectives — Two proposed New York bills have led to a divide among lawmakers and experts. The state is planning to introduce the Elder Parole and Fair and Timely Parole legislation to ease parole eligibility requirements for the aging prison population...
William Blake, Solitary Watch — In 2013, when I had been locked up in solitary confinement for 25 years, I wrote an essay entitled “A Sentence Worse Than Death,” which I’m told has been read by upwards of a million people to date. It describes what life was like in “the box” (the special housing unit, or SHU for short) in New York’s state prisons, and posited that if given the choice, I would have opted for a sentence of death over more than two decades of incarceration in abject isolation. But when the phone rang, it was not Theresa’s husband on the line. Instead, it was...
Latasha Danielle Drax, Love Beyond the Wall — It was a Thursday when Morris Edward Grady told his beloved wife that he would call the following day. On Friday, February 13th, Theresa waited with anticipation for her husband's call. Valentine’s Day 2026 would be the celebration of their 18th wedding anniversary—a marriage of bliss but not without blisters....
Ethan Geringer-Sameth, Crains New York Business — A package of bills that has floated in Albany for close to a decade would make it easier for imprisoned seniors to receive parole, a measure supporters say is both humane and cost-saving as state lawmakers look for ways to plug a multi-billion-dollar outyear budget gap...
Algis Baliunas, New York Times — I came of age as a prosecutor at the onset of the most punitive period in modern American history. It was the 1970s in Chicago, and President Richard Nixon spoke often of the urgency of getting drugs off our streets. Crime rates were high. Communities were under strain....
Nora Mishanec, Times Union, Yahoo News — (EDFORD) A coalition of nonprofits this week joined a growing chorus of concern over what advocates consider "dangerous and deteriorating" conditions at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the state's only maximum-security prison for women...
Steve Zeidman, NY Daily News — Stanley Richards, New York City’s newly appointed Department of Correction commissioner, testified at a recent City Council hearing that Rikers Island was under acute strain and badly in need of an overhaul. In addition to the decaying physical structure, Richards highlighted a decrease in correction officer staffing levels such that people inside do not feel safe...
Edwin Martínez / El Diario — Líderes políticos y defensores exigen que se dé luz verde a un paquete de normativas que busca liberar a internos que ya pagaron por sus delitos...
Alissa Clausell / Channel 2 WGRZ — t's a controversial proposal and it's back in the New York State legislature once again. The Elder Parole Bill would give certain incarcerated people who are 55 and older a chance to appear before the New York State Board of Parole after serving at least 15 years...
Johan Sheridan / NEWS10-Nexstar — A coalition of advocacy groups has accused New York's Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) of ongoing staff violence and systematic violations of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Law (HALT Act). The groups cited several deaths in state-run prisons, including the 2022 waterboarding death of Ladale Kennedy at Upstate Correctional Facility and the 2024 beating and death of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility. The coalition also condemned visitation restrictions and a ban on family care packages...
Kerria Weaver/ Democrat & Chronicle — When Jalil Abdul Muntaqim took the podium to address the lawmakers during the public forum section of the Monroe County Legislature meeting, several Republican legislators walked out of the chamber...
Reuven Blau / The City — A coalition of more than 50 advocacy organizations is urging New York lawmakers to scrutinize the state’s prison system, pressing for answers about alleged brutality, deaths behind bars and violations of solitary confinement reforms as the legislature weighs more than $4 billion in funding...
Tandy Lau / NY Amsterdam News — Last month, Greg Mingo, a formerly incarcerated activist, was enlisted to advocate for Morris Grady, who, at age 71, was serving a sentence in Ulster County’s Eastern Correctional Facility. He immediately agreed to pen a letter, but Grady died a day later. “[His wife] asked me Thursday, and he passed away Friday,” recalled Mingo...
