Relates to parole eligibility for certain incarcerated persons age fifty-five or older

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◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Cordell Cleare says this is needed

After decades of harsh sentencing practices, New York State holds the shameful distinction of having the third-largest population of people serving terms of life imprisonment in the country. Hundreds of incarcer- ated New Yorkers - parents, grandparents and great-grandparents - may never live to have an. individualized release assessment, no matter how much they have changed in the years and decades since their conviction. People serving life sentences are disproportionately Black and Latinx, and they are aging rapidly behind bars. The perpetual confinement of aging and elderly people is particularly immoral as studies show that rearrest rates for older adults released from prison are vanishingly small, particularly for those originally convicted of serious crimes. However, even as New York's prison popu- lation declined in the last two decades, the number of elders behind bars grew substantially. New York has the second-largest prison budget in the nation, spending between $100,000 and $240,000 annually for each incarcerated older adult, which the New York State Department of Correction and Community Supervision (DOCCS) defines as adults 55 years of age or older, due to the accelerated aging people experience while in prison. There is a growing consensus among people across the political spectrum that mass incarceration is ineffective, flawed, and racially biased. It harms, rather than improves, community health and safety. Elder parole would ensure that older adults serving long sentences have an opportu- nity before the Parole Board to demonstrate their transformation. It would not require anyone, regardless of their age; to be released. Rath- er, it would empower the Parole Board to use its discretion by individ- ually evaluating a person based on the factors established in Section 259-I of the Executive Law. This legislation would bring hope to incarcerated people who have worked hard to change, as well as their families. It would allow people the chance to safely return to their communities and save the state hundreds of millions of dollars that could be reinvested to meet critical commu- nity needs.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.