RAPP Campaign
Release Aging People in Prison Campaign
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....
Post-COVID Trends in New York's Aging Prison Population — Report from NYS Comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli
During the summer of 2025, the Ulster County Legislature and more than 135 organizations submitted open letters advocating passage of the Fair & Timely Parole and the Elder Parole Bills, full implementation of the HALT Act, and more . . .
ALBANY, NY (06/06/2025) (readMedia) — This morning, the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus (BPHA) held a press conference unveiling the "Robert Brooks Blueprint for Justice & Reform", a legislative package aimed to address systemic patterns of abuse and violations of human rights in New York's jails and prisons. One of the priority bills in this package is the Fair Access to Justice Act (A649 Cruz / S844 Salazar), which would remove unfair legal hurdles keeping survivors abused in state custody from accessing the justice they deserve....
[F]or the last nine years of available data, the Parole Board was 22.26% less likely to release a person of color than a white person. This systemic failure remains persistent and is only getting worse...
susie day / CounterPunch+ — Recently in New York State, prison guards, largely to counter media exposés of their brutalities—like the beating death of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility last December—staged a wildcat strike. The strike left thousands of prisoners locked for weeks inside cold cells, cut off from food, showers, medicine, visits. The strike is over now; the guards have basically won. But, during the strike, at least nine incarcerated people died of beatings or medical neglect. Phillip Nieves was one of those incarcerated who lived through it. Phillip's sister, Lisette Nieves, lived through it as well.
susie day / CounterPunch+ — Art can open you up to see and understand whole new freeing dimensions of life. But most of us are purposely kept away from the reality of life inside prisons. Definitely, see the movie — but as you’re watching, keep in mind that it isn’t about prison so much as the wonder of the “rehabilitation” program....
Schneider, Shapiro, Paul / NY Times Letters: Ms. Treen’s excellent essay raises a number of important issues, to which I’d like to add one more: prison education. If more incarcerated individuals were able to receive more education while behind bars, recidivism rates would almost certainly drop, and, eventually, the average age of the prison population would, too....
Robert Abruzzese / Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Lawmakers and advocates from Brooklyn, including individuals who were formerly incarcerated, held a press conference in Albany on Monday to discuss the importance of parole justice for families in the state...
Shivani Chauhan / BNN The People's Network: New York faces a critical prison crisis, highlighting the need for parole reform to address an aging inmate population and skyrocketing healthcare costs...
Barbara Hanson Treen, New York Times: As a New York State parole commissioner for 12 years, I evaluated the readiness for release and risk to public safety of more than 75,000 incarcerated people. I saw these changes in people every day.
Yet in spite of those transformations, the number of aging long-termers warehoused in prisons has only increased in recent years...
Marta Nelson & Erica Bryant, Vera.org: At 68 years old, Greg Mingo was granted clemency and released from a New York State prison after being unjustly convicted of a crime he did not commit. After spending more than 39 years in prison, he expected to die there...
