New York’s prisons are teeming with aging inmates at increasing costs to the taxpayer, and people are no safer from crime, the state’s chief judge said Monday, pushing for legislation that would give prisoners serving lengthy sentences a second chance.
“What do we get from all this incarceration? It doesn’t make us safer. Studies have shown that as our prison population went up, the crime rate also rose,” Chief Judge of New York Rowan Wilson said in his opening remarks at the annual State of the Judiciary in Albany analyzing New York’s court system.
“Put simply, our criminal justice system isn’t working. Maybe it hasn’t really ever worked. Prolonged incarceration is very expensive, but it does not make us safer. It entrenches poverty, perpetuates cycles of violence, and harms many of the New Yorkers we are trying to protect and serve.”
Wilson called for state lawmakers to reconsider the “Second Look Act,” sponsored by Brooklyn Democrats Sen. Julia Salazar and Assemblymember Latrice Walker, which would enable New Yorkers serving sentences more than a decade who are making strides at bettering themselves behind bars to demonstrate their incarceration is no longer warranted.
Wilson, New York’s first Black chief judge, noted that the U.S. has more than double the recidivism rates of most European countries and one of the highest globally.
He cited data showing that New York’s prison population is getting older and increasingly setting back taxpayers.
By 2021, the percentage of prison inmates over 50 had doubled to more than a quarter of the overall population compared to 2008, Wilson said.
The cost of housing prison inmates in 2011 was around $81,000 a year, a figure that ballooned to more than $250,000 annually by 2021, according to data Wilson cited compiled by the state comptroller’s office. That number increases to more than half a million — around $1,500 a day — when benefits and pensions for Department of Correction staff are taken into consideration.
The program for this year’s state of the court system focused on how it can evolve to better respond to the challenges of crime, sentencing, and incarceration. Last year, Wilson focused on New York’s diversion courts.
State Department of Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III, the first former corrections officer to ever be appointed a commissioner, said the countless inmates making extraordinary strides in transforming themselves should be acknowledged.
He also made mention of Robert Brooks, who was brutally beaten to death by corrections officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in December, The incident was captured on video and prompted public outcry and an active criminal investigation.
“The actions of those staff members were repugnant and do not represent our values as an agency. I have always said that individuals go to prison as punishment, not for punishment, and I will not normalize violence within our facilities,” Martuscello said, adding the DOC was working with prosecutors to hold those officers acountable.
Several New Yorkers with experience behind bars spoke to standing ovations, including two who are currently serving life sentences.
Christopher Martinez, a father of three who was sentenced to 65 years in prison when he was 17 following his conviction for murder, is 23 years into his term at maximum-security Shawangunk Correctional facility in Ulster County.
“When I was sentenced, I was a high school dropout who never had the chance to vote, obtain a driver’s license, serve on a jury panel or pay taxes. And I may never have those chances,” Martinez said.
Wearing a suit for the first time in his life, Martinez said he earned his high school diploma behind bars in June 2019 and then went on to obtain his bachelor’s degree with a concentration in Sociology in 2023.
“I have not incurred a single disciplinary infraction in 23 years. It is not because I am perfect or even follow every single rule, which I think would be almost impossible. Instead, it is because of mutual respect, because I have devoted myself to the ideas of redemption and rehabilitation, to proving that I can be a productive member of a community, to proving that others can live safely around me. Today, I am one of many creating a new pipeline: a school-to-prison-to-college pipeline.”
Tami Eldridge, 51, is 25 years into a life sentence for murder at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, 13 of them spent in solitary confinement.
After beginning her path to education nearly a decade ago, she obtained her master’s last year from New York Theological Seminary in Professional Studies and started a number of initiatives in prison, including The Judith Circle, which helps incarcerated women prepare for the G.E.D.
“I wish I could do this work on the outside, out in society. I know that I might never leave Bedford. But others will. And so I help everyone I can get signed up for school. I help the other women at Bedford do the work of turning their lives around and being prepared to go home, and most importantly, I help them become the best versions of themselves.”
Wilson said Martinez and Eldridge weren’t informed they’d be invited to speak in person until Sunday night for security reasons.
“I don’t know what this day feels like to Ms. Eldridge or Mr. Martinez. But I do know what I want them to feel: hope. Hope not just for themselves — and maybe even not mostly for themselves — but for all those who, like them, are not the same person convicted of a terrible crime many years ago,” Wilson said.
“What we are doing is not the best we can do. I know that, Commissioner Martuscello knows that, and I believe all of you know that too. We can do better. Won’t we?”
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