RAPP Campaign

Release Aging People in Prison Campaign

Martuscello

Prison reformers want more accountability at DOCCS

Johan Sheridan / NEWS10-Nexstar — A coalition of advocacy groups has accused New York's Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) of ongoing staff violence and systematic violations of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Law (HALT Act). The groups cited several deaths in state-run prisons, including the 2022 waterboarding death of Ladale Kennedy at Upstate Correctional Facility and the 2024 beating and death of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility. The coalition also condemned visitation restrictions and a ban on family care packages...

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Hochul faces calls to fire NY corrections chief

Nexstar Media, Inc. — ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Criminal justice advocates rallied at the state Capitol Thursday, accusing Governor Kathy Hochul of hypocrisy for demanding federal accountability while ignoring deaths in New York state prisons. While they demonstrated outside her office, Daniel Martuscello III, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, testified down the hall before the legislature at a budget hearing on public protection...

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Formerly incarcerated man advocates with Orange County legislator

Vandana Saras / Middletown Times-Herald — Gabrielle Hill, the newly elected Orange County Legislator for District 6, met Alton Lee during her election campaign. Lee, who works as a Hudson Valley community leader at Release Aging People in Prison, handed her a postcard that she said read: The bills will reunite families, make our community safer and save $522 million a year...

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New York’s Prison Officials Don’t Want Incarcerated People to Read This Story

Rebecca McCray / Hell Gate — On Monday morning, state correction officers trickled back to work following a three-week-long wildcat strike that affected nearly all of the state’s 42 prisons and caused disruptions in meals, medication distribution, education and rec programming, and effectively confined incarcerated people to their cells for nearly 24 hours a day in some facilities. Over the course of the strike, seven incarcerated people died, including 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi of the Bronx, who was reportedly beaten to death by correction officers who have since been placed on leave...

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The Hidden War Fueling the New York Prison Guard Strike

Orisanmi Burton / Inquest — New York state prison guards have been on strike since February 17. The strike began in part as a result of attempts by the state to prosecute the death of Robert Brooks, a forty-three-year-old Black father who was serving a twelve-year prison sentence at Marcy Correctional Facility when he was fatally beaten by guards on December 9, 2024...

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