After a year of crisis, advocates make early push for prison reform
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A new report compiles testimony from the State Senate Joint Public Hearing on the Safety of Persons in Custody, Transparency, and Accountability, detailing testimonials of the violence and neglect incarcerated persons experience in state prisons. AP file photo by Mark Lennihan
By Noah Powelson
A new report from a Queens state senator’s office contends that violence and racism are endemic throughout New York State prison’s system, and calls on the legislature to pass reforms to prevent a repeat of the crises that engulfed the prisons last year.
On the first day of New York’s 2026 legislative session, Queens and Brooklyn State Senator Julia Salazar released a new report highlighting the year of exceptional violence seen inside state correctional facilities during 2025. The report alleges incarcerated individuals are regularly abused by correctional officers, provided insufficient medical care, and that the state fails to hold officers accountable for wrongdoing or misconduct.
“This report makes a public case that’s crystal clear, well-substantiated, and utterly devastating: the need to overhaul New York’s prisons is an emergency,” Salazar said in a statement. “State prisons are legally and ethically responsible for protecting those they detain, but incarcerated New Yorkers routinely suffer severe, lethal abuse and neglect. Misconduct toward incarcerated individuals by correctional officers is commonplace—and so are the cover-ups.”
The 64-page report, titled “Built on Brutality,” complies testimony heard from current and former incarcerated New Yorkers, their families and other experts during the State Senate Joint Public Hearing on the Safety of Persons in Custody, Transparency, and Accountability on May 14, 2025.
The testimony details the various violent encounters incarcerated persons experienced at the hands of other inmates, but also from prison officers and staff themselves.
“Incarcerated individuals and advocacy organizations that work with them report that prisons are incredibly violent places, where beatings and other forms of abuse by staff are very common,” the report reads. “It is frequently reported that officers beat up incarcerated individuals simply because they can.”
Testimony from one incarcerated person detailed an incident where, during a search of another incarcerated person’s cell, an officer punched the other person because they picked up trash that was being thrown out.
“They then held her hands down putting her in a chokehold til she couldn’t breathe and
started to seize,” the incarcerated person testified “The CO hit her so hard you could hear it in the rec room. She was not resisting in any way but stunned from what just happened to her.”
Queens and Brooklyn State Senator Julia Salazar released a new report detailing violence inside state correctional facilities and called for new prison reforms. AP Photo/Hans Pennink
Lack of sufficient medical care inside correctional facilities was also highlighted in the report. According to the Correctional Association of New York, only 32 percent of incarcerated people reported they were satisfied with their care in 2019, and incarcerated persons testified their medical needs were ignored for months at a time.
One incarcerated man testified he suffered severe pain after falling in his cell but did not receive care for months. Eventually, he said he lost all feeling below one of his knees. Further testing reportedly showed two vertebrae had been dislodged by the fall.
But even after getting surgery and being assigned physical therapy, the incarcerated man said medical staff did not give continued care.
“I have not been instructed how to change the angle of the brace, I have not been put in physical therapy, and after a month in the infirmary with no help from the doctors, I removed my stitches myself,” the incarcerated person said.
The report called on lawmakers to pass legislation aimed to increase release pathways for incarcerated persons, maintain their rights and increase oversight of the Department of Correction and Community Supervision. The report voiced support for several legislative initiatives, including the Second Look Act, the CARE ACT, the Elder Parole bill and many others.
Chief among the report's legislative demands was the full reimplementation of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, which bans the use of solitary confinement in state prisons. The HALT Act was suspended during the wildcat correctional officer union strike last year, and has not been fully reimplemented in the months following the strike’s end.
“Prisons must finally and fully implement the HALT Solitary Law, and the Governor and legislature must expand pathways of release from these deadly prisons and transform the environments inside, including by enacting Elder Parole, Fair and Timely Parole, Rights Behind Bars, and Sentencing Reforms. Incarcerated peoples’ lives matter,” Jerome R. Wright, co-director of the HALT Solitary Campaign, said.
According to recently recorded and published data from DOCCS, there are currently more than 33,000 people incarcerated in New York prison facilities. According to the Correctional Association of New York, DOCCS reported 143 deaths in custody last year. This represented the highest number of in-custody deaths in the past five years and a 34 percent increase from the 107 deaths reported in 2023.
While conditions inside state prisons have always been condemned by prison reform advocates, last year saw a series of deaths inside prisons that spurred outrage and anger from more elected officials.
The death of 43-year-old Robert Brooks, who was beaten and strangled by correctional officers inside Marcy’s Correctional Facility, started a renewed call for prison reform after videos of his death were published. Robert Brooks’ father, Robert Ricks, added his own voice in support of the report’s findings.
“In December of 2024, New York’s violent, racist, and inhumane prison system enabled correction officers to murder my son, Robert Brooks, in cold blood,” Ricks said in a statement. “This report makes it clear that the execution of Robert was not a standalone occurrence; it was the norm. It should not be normal that government employees can assault and kill a New Yorker in their care. Yet that is exactly the case—our State prisons have normalized the killing, torture, and brutalization of New Yorkers, with rare instances of accountability or justice.”
“State leaders have a moral obligation to implement the recommendations outlined in this report, or the blood of future murders by prison staff is on their hands,” Ricks added.
