(New York, NY) – Today, advocates, family members, and formerly incarcerated leaders gathered outside Governor Kathy Hochul’s New York City office to demand that she exercise her constitutional clemency powers to release people from New York State prisons, particularly incarcerated women amid a deepening humanitarian crisis.
The rally, led by The NAACP New York State Conference, Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) Campaign, The Survivor Justice Project, The Fortune Society, VOCAL-NY and other organizations comes as Gov Hochul has granted no clemencies to incarcerated people in all of 2025 and has granted only two clemencies to only incarcerated women since taking office. With more than 1,600 pending applications and counting, advocates will demand the governor use her powers expansively to promote fair and safe pathways home to protect New Yorkers from the prison crisis and reunite families…