A bill package strengthening prison oversight remains unsigned by Gov. Kathy Hochul after passing the state legislature right before the 2025 session ended this past June. While the rest of the year remains for her to sign the omnibus bill into law, proponents are restless. The bill would go into effect immediately after the ink dries.
The package has 10 parts, including proposals to install 24/7 cameras in prisons; notify family members in a timely fashion of people who die in custody; and bolster prison oversight organizations, including the State Commission of Correction (SCOC) and Correctional Association of New York (CANY). The SCOC is an oversight agency with powers to investigate and even close down problematic facilities.; CANY is a nonprofit watchdog contracted to monitor state prison conditions.
The deaths of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, two Black men held in state prisons in the small upstate town of Marcy, sparked calls for prison reform after tens of prison staff were implicated and charged in the deadly beatings during late 2024 to early 2025. Around the same time, corrections officers conducted an illegal strike across the state.
Last month, advocates protested outside of Hochul’s Manhattan office and unveiled the End Prison Violence (EPV) coalition, a campaign dedicated to getting the omnibus bill passed. The movement included former State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who recounted regularly encountering civil cases alleging “fractured skulls, shattered jaws, [and] broken bones” while representing the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) as New York’s chief attorney.
“I was a prosecutor, and our office sent people to prison, but we never sent anyone to prison with the thought that they would be beaten to death by corrections staff [who were] supposed to protect them,” he said during the August 12 rally. “I know that the murders of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi were not isolated instances. They were not a matter of a few bad apples among the corrections staff. There’s an epidemic of violence in New York state prisons.”
Another leading campaign organizer, Derrick Hamilton, co-founder of Families and Friends for the Wrongfully Convicted, told the Amsterdam News this week that EPV will hold rallies at Hochul’s offices in Rochester and Albany. He believes tackling safety concerns between the population and staff should be a one-sided issue — last year, 143 people incarcerated in New York state prisons died, while not a single correctional officer’s death was recorded.
“This shouldn’t be something hard to review,” said Hamilton, who spent more than two decades in prison for a wrongful conviction. “This is common-sense legislation. These are things that should have been in place a long time ago.”
Hochul’s office pointed to several reforms made by the governor after the deaths, including budget funding for fixed and body-worn cameras and reorganizing the DOCCS Office of Special Investigations, which looks into the deaths of incarcerated individuals.
“Governor Hochul has made it clear that the safety of all New Yorkers — including the staff and incarcerated individuals in our prisons — is a top priority, and has implemented a number of new policies within DOCCS to begin the process of making significant systemic changes following the murder of Robert Brooks,” said a spokesperson for Hochul by email. “Our Administration continues to explore a number of options with our legislative partners to improve the system through renewed correction officer recruitment efforts and policy reforms, and the Governor will review this legislation.”
Advocates believe the omnibus remains necessary to keep corrections officers in check. “You pass a budget — [if] you don’t sign the bill to get it in operation, it doesn’t deter those people,” said Hamilton. “She knows who we [are] talking about. We [are] talking about correction officers who walked out [in] a wildcat strike … we’re dealing with lawless people, and the only thing to deter them is [signing] this bill for them to know that there’s going to be accountability.”
NYC Comptroller Brad Lander penned a letter to Hochul on September 9, urging her to pass the legislation. He pointed to how the law focused on state prisons could also affect local jails like those on Rikers Island, where three people died recently. Section H in the bill package would expand the SCOC.
“Although Rikers is operated by the City, it is still a local correctional facility subject to the State Commission of Correction’s minimum standards,” wrote Lander. “These reforms would allow the Commission to exercise stronger oversight — in certifying Rikers’ maximum capacity; determining the required post complement and compelling adequate staffing; conducting unannounced inspections and private interviews; obtaining records, including medical records, by subpoena; issuing corrective directives and applying to Supreme Court to compel compliance; and, as a last resort, closing a facility that remains unsafe, unsanitary, inadequate, or noncompliant.”
Currently, just three commissioners sit on the SCOC board. All of them are appointed by the governor’s office (pending State Senate confirmation) and two hail from a law enforcement background. Section H of the omnibus bill would add six more people, appointed by state lawmakers and CANY.
“It would also require a diversity of backgrounds, so it would ensure that one commissioner has a public health background, one commissioner has a behavioral health background, one commissioner has a prisoner of rights or public defense communication background,” said Yonah Zeitz, an advocacy director for the grassroots Katal Center. “One commissioner would have to be formerly incarcerated.… we feel like changing up the makeup of the commission is a necessary step to ensure that it is mandated.”
Not only would CANY receive two appointments for the SCOC commission under the omnibus bill, the nonprofit could also conduct site visits with shorter notice times, from 72 hours to 24 hours, giving prisons less time to cover up conditions. The bill also grants the watchdog quarterly access to datasets without filing a public records request, according to Sumeet Sharma, CANY’s director of policy and communications.
“We’ll have on hand data about who’s under custody, staffing levels, statistics related to disciplinary charges, statistics related to grievances, and a few other datasets that would just be sent to us automatically each quarter,” Sharma said.
So what are they gonna do about Inmate on Inmate violence? Drug overdoses and K-2 use is at a alltime high. All the correctional officers wear body cameras already. Why dump more money into jails? They have a serious staffing problems most jails are running at about 50% staff.