RAPP Campaign
Release Aging People in Prison Campaign
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....
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....
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...
Johan Sheridan / News 10 — Governor Kathy Hochul of New York granted clemency to 13 individuals, reducing the prison sentences of two men and pardoning 11 others. The governor has granted 120 clemencies since taking office in 2021, but advocates say this is too slow to address the backlog of almost 1,800 pending applications and rising death toll inside state prisons. The commutations and pardons were given to people who have demonstrated remorse, rehabilitation, and improvement in themselves and their communities...
Reuven Blau / The City — Some of the most powerful actors in New York’s criminal justice system — district attorneys, prison superintendents and even the judges who imposed the original sentences — have urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to grant clemency to people serving decades behind bars. Until this week, she hadn’t freed a single one...
Fernando Martínez / El Diario — Una coalición de organizaciones, que promueven reformas profundas al sistema penitenciario de Nueva York, protestaron este martes, a las puertas de la oficina de la gobernadora Kathy Hochul, en Manhattan. Familiares y activistas denuncian, que en lo que va de 2025, la mandataria estatal, no ha otorgado ningún perdón o conmutación de penas a personas en prisiones del estado...
Jacob Kaye / Queens Daily Eagle — Tami Eldridge, a 51-year-old woman from Queens, has spent the past 25 years in a New York State prison...
Nick Reisman / Politico — CLEMENCY PLEA: Left-leaning advocates are pressuring Hochul to use her clemency powers amid a backlog of 1,600 applications...
Steve Zeidman / New York Times — President Trump is making shameless use of his constitutional clemency power, rewarding insurrectionists, cronies, campaign contributors and sundry others. But this is not the only problem. Mr. Trump’s acts of commission are paralleled by American governors’ acts of omission. Even though they control the bulk of the country’s prison population and typically have the power to grant clemency, many governors have consistently failed to exercise the power of forgiveness, to all of our detriment...
Jacob Kaye / Queens Daily Eagle — As the illegal strike by New York State prison guards entered its ninth day on Tuesday, Governor Kathy Hochul said enough was enough. The officers who had illegally walked off of their jobs in New York’s prisons over a week ago had yet to negotiate their return in good faith and were putting “the entire state at risk” by going AWOL, Hochul said...
Alton Lee / Hudson Valley Times — As a veteran, I’m offended that those who attacked our Capitol in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 were rewarded by President Trump with blanket pardons simply because of their unquestioning loyalty to him. As a formerly incarcerated person, I’m outraged that so many other people in prison, who have done tremendous work to turn their lives around and give back to society, still languish there without any such recognition....
Johan Sheridan / News10 ABC — ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Gov. Kathy Hochul granted clemency to 22 people on December 19, with one sentence commuted and the rest pardoned. She has granted clemency to 94 people in total since taking office in 2021...
