Relatives of prisoners in New York jails, exreos and activists launched a campaign on Wednesday to demand that Governor Kathy Hochul pardon hundreds of inmates who they consider deserve it, before they die in prison, far from their loved ones.
“Clemencia now” shouted in front of the governor’s office in Manhattan where they held a demonstration in which they showed photos of children, brothers, husbands or friends that are part of the 31,469 inmates – men, women and young people – in the 50 prisons of the state.
According to the Columbia University Center for Justice, part of the “Communities, not cages” coalition that launched the “# Hochultráelosacasa” campaign, 75% of the prisoners are black and Latino, many of them with long sentences that forces them to wait years to apply for parole.
Some die without even having the opportunity to appear before the Parole Board.
Arnie Raimondo, who served “39 years and six months” – as he pointed out precisely – was released last February after the clemency granted by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Mingo and Uylesse, African-Americans who were released from prison last September for Cuomo’s clemency, after serving 40 and 36 years of sentence, respectively, were today in the protest “for those left behind” in prison.
But according to the professor of the Law School of the City University of New York (CUNY), member of the coalition, Steven Zeidman, clemency measures are not enough to reduce the prison population and stresses that we must change various laws, including those that establish long sentences.
He also recalled that there are two pending projects in the state legislature: one proposes the release of the elderly and the other so that those who have served 15 years in prison and are over 55 years of age can go to the Parole Board to request your release.
A recent study by the Center for Justice further indicates that in the past decade, roughly one in three people who died had served at least fifteen years in prison, compared with one in 29 in the 1980s.
Also that despite the fact that deaths have decreased in each age group, the same does not happen with those over 55 years of age, because practices such as harsher sentences, the denial of conditional release and keeping the elderly in jail, the Older adult deaths have increased enormously in prisons.
It also stands out that in the last decade 1,278 people have died in prisons, more than the total of executed (1,130) in New York during the 364 years in which the death penalty was in force (1608-1972).
José Colón has served 23 years in prison from a 30-year sentence to life imprisonment and it will not be until 2029 when he can request his conditional release, for which he will ask Hochul for clemency, his wife Jennifer told EFE.
Colón, sentenced at 17, is studying and has become a mentor to other prisoners, which makes him worthy of clemency, said his wife.
According to the coalition, Hochul has not granted a single pardon in his two months in office and Cuomo only granted 41 in his eleven years as governor, out of a total of 6,405 petitions that reached his desk and are “still there.” .
This week the Hochul Administration announced that in March of next year it will close six prisons, and that its population of 1,420 people will be transferred to other prisons.
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