Participants in NYC Delivered to Gov’s Office Oversize Postcard Naming 125 People Who Died in NY Prisons So Far This Year & Demanded an End to the Crisis of Racist Brutality, Torture & Death in New York Prisons and Jails
(New York) — Today, people who experienced incarceration, family members of people inside, and other allies as part of leading justice campaigns across the state came together to hold a series of actions in Albany, Buffalo, Ithaca, Long Island, and New York City. There is a longstanding and acute crisis of racist brutality, torture, and death in New York State prisons, jails, and detention facilities. People across the system are being locked in solitary confinement up to 24 hours a day – in flagrant violation of the HALT Solitary Law, facing extreme officer brutality and sexual abuse, and being denied out-of-cell time, programming, visits, and medical and mental health care. And people continue to die – at an unconscionable rate of nearly one person dying every two days.
Participants called on Governor Hochul and state lawmakers to end the crises in New York prisons and jails by finally implementing the HALT Solitary Law, expanding pathways for release from incarceration, and ending all abuses inside. Participants urged both urgent executive action and enactment of critical legislation, including Fair and Timely Parole, Second Look Act, Elder Parole, Earned Time Act, Challenging Wrongful Convictions, Rights Behind Bars, CARE Act, and the Visiting Rights Bill…