RAPP Campaign

Release Aging People in Prison Campaign

Carol Shapiro

Parole reform inches closer as proponents push lawmakers

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....

Read moreParole reform inches closer as proponents push lawmakers

Parole 101: People in Prison Deserve Second Chances

Nazish Dholakia, Vera Inst. of Justice — Bobbi Cobaugh wrote in Inquest that “the only way to atone for a murder was to become a better person.” While incarcerated in the New York State prison system, she earned a paralegal degree, associate and bachelor's degrees in sociology, and a master’s degree in criminal justice. She has completed—and taught—anger replacement programs. And she attends trauma counseling weekly...

Read moreParole 101: People in Prison Deserve Second Chances

How Education and Experience Can Help Prisoners Achieve Parole • Response to Barbara’s Treen’s Essay, “Living Slow Deaths Behind Bars”

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....

Read moreHow Education and Experience Can Help Prisoners Achieve Parole • Response to Barbara’s Treen’s Essay, “Living Slow Deaths Behind Bars”

N.Y. needs criminal justice reform: We must put compassion in parole decisions

By: Carol Shapiro, New York Daily News - People often think mass incarceration is the result of a few laws — the federal 1994 crime bill or state-level Rockefeller Drug laws, for example — but in reality it’s driven by everyday decisions, small and large, made by actors across the justice system, including some you’ve probably never heard of...

Read moreN.Y. needs criminal justice reform: We must put compassion in parole decisions