BOOTS ON THE GROUND

… in support of all May 29, 2025

Albany, New York—Advocates Call for End to Mass Incarceration: Yesterday, at the capital upstate, formerly incarcerated New Yorkers, advocates, and legislators rallied at the New York State capital to highlight the issue of mass incarceration in New York State and demand legislative changes. Their press conference was held on the second floor of the Historic Landmark building. Among the speakers were State Assemblymembers Latrice Walker, who was greeted with thunderous applause as she entered the rally area, Demond Meeks, and Harvey Epstein.

Representatives from a host of organizations also attended.  They included:  VOCAL-NY, Release Aging People in Prison, The Parole Preparation Project, HALT Solitary Campaign, Center for Community Alternatives (CCA), New Hour-LI, New York County Defender Services. 

According to the Prison Policy Institute, New York has an incarceration rate of 317 per 100,000 people, meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democratic country on earth. “There are people in prison who are wrongfully convicted and have no avenue for relief, speakers said. There are elderly people, sick and in hospice, with no avenue for relief. There are people in prison since they were 17 and now 70, with no avenue for relief.”

One woman opined, alternating shedding tears of grief, bewilderment, and joy: how can some be imprisoned for minor crimes, and others for larger let go, or not be imprisoned at all.”  Assemblywoman Walker’s address to her constituents and supporters yesterday, is below:

Assembly member Latrice Walker

Every wrongfully convicted New Yorker deserves a viable path to exoneration. Our state ranks third in the nation – behind Texas and Illinois – in the number of such convictions. People have been robbed of their livelihood, time with their families, and they’ve lost every conceivable benefit of freedom.

I sponsored the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act in the Assembly to give people a fighting chance, including access to post-conviction discovery and an attorney in eligible cases. Being wrongfully convicted is among the greatest harms a person can experience. New York State lawmakers must do everything in our power to make them whole.

Wrongfully convicted Black people spend an average of 13.8 years in prison. Some lose year away from their children. We all know of cases in which wrongfully convicted people lose loved ones while locked up.

I’m not saying that we should open the gates and let all incarcerated people go free. What I am saying is that anyone who has an actual claim of innocence should have a mechanism to prove it in court. They deserve an opportunity to right the wrong -whether they pleaded guilty or not. We all know that 98 percent of criminal cases are disposed of through guilty pleas. An untold number of these pleas are coerced.

Some people unwittingly took deals because they didn’t have access to the evidence against them.

Despite the progress we’ve made as a state on criminal justice reforms, including bail and discovery, we still have work to do. I ask my colleagues to give innocent people a fighting chance by supporting the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act.