Parole reform gets final push before end of legislative session
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Stanley Bellamy (center) speaks at a rally in support of two parole reform bills currently being considered by the legislature on Monday, May 8, 2023. Photo via RAPP
By Jacob Kaye
With just several weeks left before the end of the state’s legislative session, hundreds of criminal justice reform advocates rallied in Albany in support of two bills that would alter the state’s parole process for elderly incarcerated individuals.
Rallying in the state’s capitol complex on Monday, the advocates and lawmakers in support of the legislation were led by a marching band as they called for the passage of the Elder Parole and Fair and Timely Parole bills. The bills, which have been introduced several times over the past couple of years but have failed to make it over the finish line, aim to give more opportunities for elderly incarcerated individuals to appear before a parole board and, ultimately, for release.
Included among the ranks of advocates was Stanley Bellamy, a Queens man who was released from prison just two weeks ago after being granted clemency by Governor Kathy Hochul and being granted release by the parole board.
Bellamy was convicted of murder in 1985 and sentenced to over 62 years in prison at the age of 22. Had he not been granted clemency, he would not have had the opportunity to appear before a parole board before the age of 85.
“I was never going to live to 85 while in prison,” Bellamy told the Eagle on Monday. “You have those types of sentences…There's no possibility of [them] ever going home unless the Elder Parole bill is passed.”
The Fair and Timely Parole bill would alter parole reviews and require the board to consider a more holistic view of who a person has become while incarcerated, rather than focusing primarily on the crime they were convicted of.
The Elder Parole bill would allow for people aged 55 and older and who have already served 15 or more years of their sentence to receive an evaluation from the state parole board. The evaluation, which would focus more on who the person was at the moment, and less on the crime they committed, would look at the person’s potential for parole release.
The bills currently have majority support in the legislature and advocates say this current session is their best shot of passing the bills yet.
Both bills look to address the increasing number of New Yorkers aging in prison while serving long sentences. A little more than 4,700 people incarcerated in New York State prisons are 55 or older.
Both bills were first introduced in 2017, and have garnered the support of a number of Queens lawmakers – Queens Assemblymember David Weprin served as the sponsor of the 2021 version of the Elder Parole bill and is currently serving as the sponsor of the 2023 version of the bill in the Assembly.
“We have to get this done,” Weprin said during the rally on Monday. “Everyone is entitled to a second chance. The crime will never change but the individual can. So many people are incarcerated for so many years and they are not the same person they were.”
“Now they should have a chance to contribute to society,” he added. “I believe in second chances.”
The Elder Parole bill is sponsored by State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Fair and Timely Parole bill is being sponsored by Senator Julia Salazar, whose Brooklyn district includes slivers of Queens.
“Our parole system is deeply unjust but it doesn’t need to be this way,” Salazar said. “2023 must be the year that we finally pass Fair & Timely Parole and Elder Parole. Until we pass them, we continue to deprive our communities of the public safety benefits our incarceration elders can offer when they are home with their families and communities.”
Supporters of the bills say that those serving long sentences and aging in prison are not only costing the state money but are being excessively punished. Many, they say, have reformed their lives while incarcerated, and some have spent decades working to improve the lives of those they are incarcerated alongside as well as those on the outside. The aging prisoners could serve as valuable assets in the communities they come from, advocates say.
Bellamy’s list of accomplishments while incarcerated is long. He earned his GED and graduated from college. He’s organized groups in prison that help incarcerated men work on themselves, and later wrote a research paper on them. He’s led anti-violence seminars and organized a campaign to put an end to littering inside prison.
Those who know him, including his attorney and his fellow criminal justice advocates, say he serves as a model for how someone can reform themselves while incarcerated. Bellamy rejects that description.
“I'm not the exception – I’m the rule,” Bellamy said. “You can go into any prison in the state and you will find men and women that are doing the same type of work that I did on the inside.”
“There’s a lot of us,” he added. “But they are not getting the same opportunities, the same changes. And they deserve it.”
Bellamy said that for those currently aging in prison, the bills serve as hope that they may one day be given the opportunity to make a difference outside of the confines of incarceration.
Several decades ago, Bellamy met a man who was 18-years-old when he was given a life without parole sentence. The man is now 40 years old and will never be granted the opportunity to appear before a parole board, let alone be released.
“That’s a death sentence,” Bellamy said. “Life without parole is saying, ‘You're going to die in prison.’ It’s saying that as a young, 18-year-old man, there is no possibility for this young man to ever change.”
“The reality is that people do change, people age out of crime, people transform themselves,” he added. “When you give them hope, you give them incentives to change but those types of sentences, there’s no incentive.”
