On January 18, 2023, as the New York legislative session got underway, hundreds of organizers, advocates, and concerned residents from across the state gathered in Albany to celebrate the homecomings and accomplishments of dozens of formerly incarcerated people who have been granted parole in recent years. The gathering, organized by the People’s Campaign for Parole Justice—a statewide coalition of advocacy organizations dedicated to reimagining the parole system—also served as an opportunity to renew the ongoing push for parole reform, with the goal of creating a more equitable and transparent system that offers meaningful opportunities for release for all those who are (or should be) eligible.
Specifically, the People’s Campaign is urging lawmakers to pass two critical pieces of legislation that would expand parole eligibility for elderly incarcerated individuals (the Elder Parole Bill) and rework parole release standards to better account for the emotional, spiritual, and/or educational growth that a person may have undergone while incarcerated (the Fair and Timely Parole Bill). In addition, advocates will continue to implore the governor’s office to appoint new and diverse candidates to serve on the Parole Board who can bring a fresh perspective to the process.
And although there are many aspects of the criminal legal system that need to be reformed, and ultimately abolished, a functioning parole system is particularly important to any serious effort to decrease bloated prison populations. This is especially true because (short of a gubernatorial pardon) parole is the only avenue to release for those serving sentences with a maximum of life in prison.
But while transforming the parole system in New York could benefit all parole-eligible individuals currently serving time in a state correctional facility, such a transformation could have a particularly profound impact on Black and Latinx inmates and their communities. Not surprisingly, there are significant racial disparities in parole release rates across the state. Like every other facet of the criminal legal system, people of color are disproportionately affected by persistent racial bias (conscious and unconscious) that infects both the parole system as a whole as well as the judgment of the individual parole commissioners tasked with making release decisions. The hard data confirms this longstanding reality.
In 2021, the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University (NYU) Law School, in partnership with the Parole Preparation Project, released a groundbreaking report entitled The Problem with Parole: New York State’s Failing System of Release (Report), which provides data that lays bare the stark realities and persistent dysfunction underlying the parole system.
But first some context. As of November 29, 2022, there were a total of 31,213 people locked inside 44 state prisons across New York. See N.Y. State Dep’t of Corr. & Cmty. Supervision, DOCCS Fact Sheet (Nov. 1, 2022). According to the most recent Under Custody report by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), of the total prison population, approximately 12,400 people are serving indeterminate sentences, meaning that they were sentenced to a range of years (e.g., 5 to 15 years), with the possibility of parole after they have served the minimum number of years. Another 7,130 people have been sentenced to a maximum of life in prison, with the possibility of parole after serving a minimum term (e.g., 15 years to life). And 305, or roughly 1 percent of the state’s incarcerated population, are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. See N.Y. State Dep’t of Corr. & Cmty. Supervision, Under Custody report as of Jan. 1, 2021 (April 2022). For perspective, at the end of 2021, 23 states had smaller total prison populations than New York’s indeterminate population alone. See Vera Inst. of Just., People in Prison in Winter 2021–22, at 3-4 (February 2022). As such, the vast majority of individuals currently incarcerated in New York will have an opportunity to appear before the Parole Board at some point to advocate for their release. And that means that the actions of the Parole Board have determined—and will continue to determine—the fate of a significant number of incarcerated people.
Further, New York exemplifies the longstanding disparities in incarceration rates playing out across the country. Indeed, as of 2019, more than 70 percent of those locked in New York state prisons were Black or Latinx, despite comprising less than 37 percent of the state’s total population. See NYU Center on Race, Inequality & the Law and Parole Preparation Project, The Problem with Parole: New York State’s Failing System of Release, p. 5 (2021).
In light of those numbers, the racial disparities in release rates, while still jarring, are unsurprising and consistent with disparities across the system. According to the Report, between January 2018 and January 2020, 46 percent of white parole applicants were granted release, compared to just 39 percent of applicants of color. A deeper dive into the numbers makes the disparities even more glaring. Some 43 percent of white applicants appearing before the Board for the first time were granted release, while only 33 percent of first-time Black or Latinx applicants were successful on their first attempt. Moreover, “[r]elease rates for applicants of color have been lower regardless of their age at the time of the interview or how old they were at the beginning of their imprisonment, both of which closely relate to how much a person has grown and changed.”
It is also worth noting that a shocking 62 percent of incarcerated people of color in New York are serving indeterminate sentences with a maximum of life in prison, leaving them at the mercy of the parole system if they ever hope to be released. To put that number in context, consider that less than a quarter of the total prison population is serving such sentences.