Senator O’Mara’s weekly column ‘From the Capitol’ — for the week of November 28, 2022 — ‘Will Albany hear the call for commonsense criminal justice?’
Will something change in Albany throughout the upcoming legislative session? Will there be a flip in direction of extra affordable criminal justice? After the November elections, the first indicators usually are not encouraging that there will likely be any change.
Senator O’Mara gives his weekly perspective on many of the key challenges and points going through the Legislature, in addition to legislative actions, native initiatives, state applications and insurance policies, and extra. Stop by each Monday for Senator O’Mara’s newest column…
This week, “Will Albany Heed the Call for Reasonable Criminal Justice?”
Throughout the previous yr, in ballot after ballot after ballot and in lots of different methods, one message saved coming by way of: New Yorkers, in lots of elements of this state, don’t really feel protected the place they dwell, work and lift their households. .
Additionally, insurance policies outdoors Albany are blamed for emboldening the criminal factor of society and for a pervasive local weather of lawlessness and violence.
Will something change in Albany throughout the upcoming legislative session? Will there be a flip in direction of extra affordable criminal justice? After the November elections, the first indicators usually are not encouraging that there will likely be any change.
Governor Hochul, for her half, hinted throughout the marketing campaign season that she could be open to revisiting the failed insurance policies as parole reform. Then, in a single of her first post-election feedback, she mentioned: “I’m going to spend time with my team and the people in [the Division of] Criminal Justice Services, my advisers and my legal team to find any way we think we can improve public safety.” This is Albany discuss shopping for time and never taking motion.
After the election, advocates instantly renewed calls to move much more “progressive” criminal justice reforms in the new legislative session that begins in January, when New York’s authorities will stay below all-Democratic management. On the agenda will likely be proposals to get rid of necessary minimal sentences, in addition to re-sentencing and different reforms to additional facilitate early launch from jail.
All of it will occur, of course, as the local weather inside New York’s jail partitions has become a powder keg since the implementation earlier this yr of a regulation often called the Humane Alternatives to Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act. – – one other disaster that Governor Hochul reveals zero willingness to deal with.
The HALT Act went into impact final April. It was first handed in 2021 by the Legislature’s Democratic majority and signed into regulation by former governor Andrew Cuomo. The New York State Police and Correctional Officers Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) repeatedly known as on Governor Hochul to halt its implementation. So did many legislators, together with myself, whose districts embody correctional amenities. Elmira Correctional Institution is now the second most harmful jail for workers and inmates.
HALT severely limits the use of particular housing models in correctional amenities and limits the skill of jail officers to self-discipline the state’s most violent inmates who commit criminal acts in jail by separating them from the basic inhabitants. NYSCOPBA has repeatedly warned since the regulation’s passage that it places officers at even better threat inside a jail system the place inmate assaults on jail workers reached report numbers in 2021 and the place the numbers are much more critical this yr.
Albany Democrats have collectively turned their backs on this disaster. They have proven no willingness to deal with it transferring ahead. In truth, Governor Hochul and the Democratic majority of the Legislature seem poised to proceed coddling violent criminals by severely hampering disciplinary sanctions, discovering much more methods to parole violent prisoners, and additional decreasing the skill of officers corrections to cope with violence inside prisons.
Weakened public security and safety, chaos over regulation and order, and an absence of affordable criminal justice have been hallmarks of the reign of Governor Hochul and the Albany Democrats. They appear able to proceed their reckless, harmful and irresponsible strategy. New Yorkers higher be able to preserve paying the worth.
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