Phone to Action Tool

Take action now for parole justice! Join us in demanding #ParoleJusticeNY by contacting your legislators TODAY

Because of decades of harsh sentencing and a racially-biased parole system that values vengeance and perpetual punishment above personal transformation, accountability, and safety, New York State has a moral and fiscal crisis of aging, sickness and death in prisons.

With roughly 9,000 New Yorkers serving life sentences, our state ranks among the harshest in the nation, surpassing states like Texas and Georgia. 3,500 New Yorkers in state prisons have already served 20 years. Some were as young as 15 when they went to prison. Roughly one-in-four are now 50 or older; notably, the average age of death of New Yorkers in prison is only 58 years old. Many others are already parole-eligible, yet face denial after denial based solely on the one thing they can never change, namely their crime of conviction.

People are dying behind bars no matter how much they have done to improve themselves and regardless of whether they pose a risk to community safety. This is a crisis.