PRESS RELEASE • NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK, LAWMAKERS, CRIME SURVIVORS & FORMERLY INCARCERATED NEW YORKERS TO RALLY FOR PAROLE JUSTICE IN NYS CAPITOL

(Albany, NY) — Today, the National Action Network’s House of Justice, more than a dozen state legislators, crime survivors and formerly incarcerated advocates held a rally to demand passage of Parole Justice legislation to promote transformation and healing, help build safe communities, and end permanent punishment. Specifically, participants called for passage of the Fair & Timely Parole and Elder Parole bills. Speakers will uplift and celebrate the many ways formerly incarcerated New Yorkers work to improve safety for all, serving as credible messengers and violence interrupters, re-entry counselors, peer recovery counselors, small business owners and entrepreneurs, non-profit leaders, harm reduction experts, policy change agents and more, as they call for the legislation to be enacted to bring home more leaders in this work. In the wake of racist mobs of prison guards viciously murdering Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, and the evidence that a racist culture of brutality has continued unchecked behind bars for decades, lawmakers committed to addressing the crisis in our prison system. Last week, Senate Crime Victim, Crime & Correction Committee Chair Julia Salazar released a report, Built on Brutality, finding such racist violence is endemic to the prison system and urging passage of these parole justice measures, along with other important policies. Participants made clear that promoting personal transformation, not endless punishment, improves safety for all.

The Reverend Al Sharpton, President and Founder of the National Action Network, said: “Public safety and racial justice go hand in hand. New York can promote safety behind bars and in the community, correct past injustices, and help to reunite Black, Brown, and working-class families by passing the Fair & Timely Parole and Elder Parole bills. Respectfully, I urge lawmakers to act this session.”

“When an incarcerated individual has served their time and demonstrated rehabilitation, especially our elders, we should allow them an opportunity for parole” said Assemblyman Erik M. Dilan (AD-54, Brooklyn), Chair of the Assembly Corrections Committee. “I support the fight in building safer, more just communities by allowing incarcerated New Yorkers who have demonstrated rehabilitation and pose no public safety risk the opportunity for parole. The passage of both the Elder Parole and Fair & Timely Parole Acts will support this shared goal.”

“Our prison system is in dire need of a complete overhaul, as my recent report showed. New York’s dysfunctional parole system leaves thousands of people wasting away behind bars, at constant risk of being brutalized by guards and sergeants, when we know they’ve served their time, rehabilitated, and are ready to be productive members of their community. Not only does this strain a prison system in crisis, but it costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year,” said Senator Julia Salazar, Chair of the Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, who recently released Built on Brutality, a report on New York’s prisons and jails. “Perpetual imprisonment is a cruel punishment that makes no one safer. This year, New York must enact Fair & Timely Parole, Elder Parole, and sentencing reforms.”

Olivia Murphy, Policy and Communications Associate at the RAPP Campaign and a violent crime survivor, said: “Crime survivors are not a monolith, but most of us want people who have hurt us to take accountability, rehabilitate themselves and commit to living right and helping others rather than facing endless punishment that we all have to pay for. Now is the time to bring home those who have transformed and committed to living within the law. Redemption is not just a word. It’s an action that so many incarcerated people have already taken with a desire to be part of society, to atone, and to make communities safer. The passage of Fair & Timely Parole and Elder Parole bills will not only make our communities safer, but also serve as a solution to help end the humanitarian crisis in prisons all over New York State.”

Alton Lee, Hudson Valley Community Leader with the RAPP Campaign, a U.S. Army veteran, and a survivor of 25 years in prison, said: “There are many of us veterans behind bars. We serve our country, and then we serve our time, but for too many of us, the state refuses to recognize our transformation. The Elder Parole and Fair & Timely Parole bills aren’t a ‘get out of jail free’ card. They’re a chance for the Parole Board to look at the people who sit before them as they are today, not the mistakes they made decades ago. Pass these bills and let my fellow veterans who are still incarcerated prove they can honor our oath to serve once more, this time by being contributing members of society.”

Tanisha Abrams (Hempstead), RAPP Member, said: “I am here today rallying for parole justice because I believe in a person’s ability to change. I myself have lived through the trauma that mass incarceration inflicts on people and survived a system that was created to destroy us. My father, who has been incarcerated for the past 29 years and counting, and my husband, who also is incarcerated, are both living proof of the strength, growth and transformation that takes place in those lonely cages. I am done watching silently what this system does to families, children, and the individuals serving the time. No one deserves a death sentence, nor do they deserve to be buried in cell alive. Families deserve healing and an opportunity to attain freedom. This is why I am here today to speak truth to power on behalf of those whose voices have been silenced behind a unfair and cruel cycle that must stop now.” 

“The Fair and Timely Parole Act and the Elder Parole Act are not about erasing accountability,” said Senator April N.M. Baskin (Buffalo). “They are about honoring rehabilitation and recognizing when people have done the hard work to change. These bills ensure that parole decisions are based on public safety and an individual’s growth and readiness to become a contributing member of society, while helping to end a system of permanent punishment that has fallen hardest on communities of color and poor New Yorkers.”

Assembly Member Dr. Anna Kelles (Ithaca) said: “Parole works best when it is used as it was originally intended, to assess who someone is today and whether they can safely and productively return to their community. The Fair and Timely Parole Act and the Elder Parole Act move New York toward a system that recognizes growth, rehabilitation, and accountability, rather than treating incarceration as a permanent sentence regardless of transformation. Decades of research show that people who are released after long periods of incarceration, particularly older adults, have among the lowest rates of recidivism. When given a meaningful opportunity for release, many return home to work, support their families, and serve as mentors and stabilizing forces in their communities. These reforms strengthen public safety by reducing cycles of incarceration, honoring dignity, and allowing our state to focus resources where they make the greatest difference, in communities, opportunity, and prevention.”

Assembly Member Dana Levenberg (Westchester and the Hudson Valley) said: “As the Assemblymember representing Ossining, home to Sing Sing as well as leading-edge pre- and post-release programming sponsored by organizations like Hudson Link and Rehabilitation Through the Arts, I have seen firsthand the personal transformations of many formerly incarcerated people. I know that people can change themselves and their communities for the better when they are given the opportunity and the resources to do so. Why would we continue to punish such people, and ourselves, by allowing them to languish needlessly in prison, at enormous cost to taxpayers? When we enact parole justice, New York State will gain upwards of $522 million in additional funds every year to invest in crime-preventing priorities like education, housing, mental health care and more. Let’s get it done in 2026.”

“Justice cannot be measured by how long we hold people confined, but by whether we allow transformation to matter. Parole justice is where accountability meets humanity—where the law recognizes growth, responsibility, and the power of return. The Elder Parole and Fair & Timely Parole bills are not symbolic gestures; they are a necessary correction to a system structurally designed to extend punishment long after its purpose has been served. By passing them, New York affirms that real public safety is built by reuniting families, restoring dignity, and bringing home the elders, mentors, and leaders our communities need to heal and thrive,” said Senator Robert Jackson (Manhattan and the Bronx).

Assembly Member Phara Souffrant Forrest (Brooklyn) said: “Parole justice allows us to reunite families, strengthen community safety, and allow people who have served their sentences come home and give back to the community. Endless and inhumane punishment does not make our communities safer. I look forward to passing Elder Parole and Fair and Timely Parole this year.”

“Members of our community who have served their time deserve a fair chance to return home, and live a productive fulfilling life. Our communities’ well-being improves across the board when we allow rehabilitated formerly incarcerated people the chance to participate in their communities, and give back to the neighborhoods they live in. If we want to focus on policy that will keep our communities safe, we need to enact the Fair & Timely Parole act, as well as the Elder Parole act. Enacting parole justice will save $522 million annually, money that we could be investing into the safety of our communities,” said Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (Queens).

Assembly Member Latrice Walker (Brooklyn) said: “Perpetual punishment does not make us any safer. I will be fighting during the current Legislative Session to reunite families and heal communities like Brownsville – where I was born and raised – by pushing for the passage of the Fair & Timely Parole and Elder Parole bills. I believe in the capacity for personal transformation. There is a very real human toll behind excessive sentences, which disproportionately affect Black and brown people. Families are divided for decades in cases where there is no benefit to keeping people incarcerated. The prison population is getting older and older. People are dying from old age or from prison abuse. The time for reform is now.”

BACKGROUND: 

• The People’s Campaign for Parole Justice is calling on lawmakers in Albany to pass two bills that, together, will ensure that people in prison have meaningful opportunities for individualized consideration for parole release based on who they are today, what they have done to change, and whether they pose a risk if released:
  • Fair and Timely Parole (S.159/A.127) restores the Parole Board to its original purpose of evaluating people’s readiness for release, rather than denying people based solely or primarily on their conviction, while preserving the Board’s discretion to make individualized determinations. In other words, it would provide more rigorous parole reviews for incarcerated people who are already parole-eligible. 
  • Elder Parole (S.454/A.514) provides for parole release consideration, on a case-by-case basis, for people classified by DOCCS as older adults who have served at least 15 years.
  • More than a dozen of the state’s leading crime victim & survivor advocates and anti-violence advocates are calling for passage of the Elder Parole and Fair & Timely Parole bills, including the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, and more.
  • These bills are also backed by 350+ partners, includingpublic defense organizations and District Attorneys alike, as well as at least two former New York State Parole Commissioners, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the NAACP, seven U.S. Congressmembers, 1199 SEIU, HTC, RWDSU, 32BJ, LiveOn NY, JASA, Newburgh MayorTorrance Harvey, the Rochester City Council, Ulster County Legislators, the New York City Council, the State Society on Aging, the ATI & Reentry Coalition, the New York City Bar Association, and many others. Attorney General Tish James backs Elder Parole.
  • According to a recent report by NYU Law School’s Center on Race, Inequality & the Law, racial disparities in parole release decisions under Governor Kathy Hochul are the highest on record. The report finds there would have been 4,152 more grants of release to people of color if their release rates matched those of white people since 2016, including 1,338 just since Gov. Hochul took office.
  • A report by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli about the unsustainable rise in the population of older adults in prison calls for expanding pathways to release.
  • The average age of death in state prisons is only 56.
  • The Center for Justice at Columbia University has estimated that enacting both bills would save $522 million annually.
  • At least 130 people died in New York State prisons since Robert Brooks was brutally murdered by a mob of white prison guards and sergeants, according to DOCCS data.