Five days after the state budget passed, elected officials Wednesday began a legislative push for measures that would let people out of prison early if they meet educational and behavioral requirements, make it easier to fire rogue correction officers, and allow an oversight group to make surprise visits to lockups.
During a nearly five-hour joint-session hearing in Albany, lawmakers and advocates repeatedly cited the beatdown deaths of Robert Brooks, 43, at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2024 and Messiah Nantwi, 22, at Mid-State Correctional Facility on March 1.
“I truly believe that my son died so that others can live,” testified Brooks’ father, Robert Ricks. “I’m asking you today to pass real legislative reform.”
He and others are pressing state lawmakers to pass the Earned Time Act and The Second Look, which would revamp the early release system and allow people who have served lengthy sentences to be eligible for reductions.
At the hearing, Department of Correction and Community Supervision Commissioner Daniel Martuscello, who oversees state prisons, declined to discuss any specific proposed legislation.
“But I would say I support things that incentivize good behavior, as well as rehabilitation to reduce the population,” he told lawmakers.
The Earned Time Act, introduced by Sen. Jeremy Cooney (D-Rochester), would revamp how people in prison can shorten their sentences based on incentives. The bill calls for the creation of a new structured and merit-based system that awards people behind bars credit for participating in work programs, educational courses, and vocational classes.
Under the proposed measure, jail officials would not be able to yank back the credits even if the incarcerated person was hit with some type of disciplinary punishment.
The justification for the bill states: “It will enhance rehabilitation efforts by protecting earned time credit, requiring good time credit to vest at the end of each year, imposing a higher burden for the withholding of good time credit, and incentivizing facilities to provide programming for merit time allowances.”
The proposed bill would also require DOCCS to file annual reports to the governor and legislature explaining the rationale in any cases where time allowances have been withheld, forfeited, or canceled. The reports would also have to list the staff members who made the decision.
State lawmakers tried to convince Gov. Kathy Hochul to include some version of the measure in the budget that formally passed at the end of last week but they were unsuccessful.
“The governor wasn’t willing to do something as substantial in terms of increasing time someone could earn off their sentence or expanding eligibility to currently ineligible people, as Assembly and Senate wanted,” state Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the Committee on Crime and Correction, told THE CITY last Friday.
The Second Look Act, introduced by Salazar, would allow people who have served 10 years or half their sentence — whichever is less — to seek a sentence reduction. In determining a possible shorter sentence, judges would have the ability to consider elements like age and the circumstance of the crime.
Salazar has also introduced legislation to give the DOCCS commissioner more power to discipline staff for serious misconduct. The proposed measure also blocks prison staffers who are fired for severe misconduct from being hired for other state jobs.
The Brooklyn lawmaker has also proposed a bill to give the Correctional Association of New York, an independent oversight group, the ability to make surprise visits to prisons. Currently, inspections must be scheduled with DOCCS and the warden of each location.
“The murders of Mr. Brooks and Mr. Nantwi highlighted what we have known for decades: that New York’s prison system is violent, ineffective, and abusive,” Salazar said before the hearing.
Budget Targets Prison Staffing
During Wednesday’s hearing, Martuscello also detailed how the department is still reeling from the nearly three week long prison strike earlier this year with an estimated 4,500 staff vacancies — about half of which existed even before the wildcat action.
Hochul has moved to fire approximately 2,000 officers who refused to come back to work. As a result, around 2,000 of the state’s National Guard are still deployed in some of the prison system’s 44 mostly upstate facilities.
Changes that did make it into the state budget include a provision to reduce the minimum age for new correction officers from 21 to 18, according to DOCCS, as a way to boost staffing.
Some lawmakers wondered if that move would just create more problems.
“We know that this job takes quite a bit of maturity, emotional intelligence, restraint to do,” said state Assemblymember Anil Beephan Jr. (R-Dutchess County).
“What steps is DOCCS taking to ensure that these 18-year and 19-year-olds are working in roles that are not going to be putting them in direct danger and putting our incarcerated individuals in danger just from that lack of life experience?”
Martuscello noted that those new hires will not be eligible for positions that require the use of a firearm. They will also be supervised by older officers for their first 18 months, he added.
“There are safeguards that have been put in place,” he said.
The new state budget also includes a plan to close up to three prisons this year as part of a years-long trend to shrink the number of lockups in the state system. Those spots have not been identified yet, Martuscello said.
And DOCCS will also now require all officers to wear body cameras during all interactions with incarcerated people. That includes in the infirmary where multiple officers beatdowns have occurred, according to lawsuits and current and former incarcerated people.
The state budget also increases funding the State Commission of Correction (SCOC), as well as a new mandate for the oversight agency to inspect every facility under its purview at least once per year.
State Senator Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) speaks at an Albany press conference about expanding early release eligibility, May 14, 2025. Credit: New York State Senate
No SCOC officials attended the hearing on Wednesday.
The Correctional Association’s budget was also increased from $2 million to $3.1 million.
Additionally, Martuscello said the department has boosted its body-worn camera policy with staff now required to activate their cameras anytime they are engaging with people behind bars.
The new budget includes $18.4 million to equip every correction officer with a body cam as well as $400 million to expand and install fixed cameras at each of its 44 facilities. The body worn-cameras should all be in place by the end of the summer, the commissioner said.
Ricks, whose son Robert Brooks was murdered last year, urged lawmakers to pass the proposed bills.
“Our leaders have an obligation to ensure no one else faces the same unwarranted,
inhumane abuse and violence that my son faced,” he said. “So I am once again calling on lawmakers and the governor of New York to live up to the promises they made, and finally reform the state’s violent and abusive prisons.”
During the hearing, Martuscello revealed that 46 people have died behind bars this year. That’s actually on pace to be slightly lower than the 144 prison deaths in 2024, which was a five-year high.
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