DOWNLOAD REPORT: Less Is More: A Status Report on Implementation
March 1, 2022
About the #LessIsMoreNY Campaign
#LessIsMoreNY is a statewide coalition of community groups, service providers, and public safety experts who worked together to develop and pass the #LessIsMoreNY Act. Restricting the use of incarceration for technical parole violations and giving people incentives to comply with parole conditions will support them as they reenter their communities; reduce jail, prison, and community supervision populations responsibly; promote safety and justice for families and communities; and save taxpayers money. The coalition is working to implement the new law fully and effectively. The #LessIsMoreNY campaign is led by the Katal Center, Unchained, and A Little Piece of Light.
About this report:
More than 31,000 people are on parole in New York State. Until September 2021, New York held the distinction of imprisoning more people than any other state —at more than six times the national average—for “technical violations” of parole rules, like missing an appointment with a parole officer, being late for curfew, or testing positive for alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs. Of the people on parole sent back to prison statewide in 2019, more than 7,000 of them —85 percent—were re-incarcerated for technical parole violations.
The state’s parole system, like so many others, is marked by stark racial and ethnic disparities; Black and Latinx people are locked up disproportionately for such violations. In 2019, Black people were five times more likely and Latinx people were 30 percent more likely than white people to be re-imprisoned for a technical parole violation. In New York City jails, Black people were incarcerated for these types of violations at 12 times the rate of white New Yorkers. This not only harms people and their families without any public safety gains but also drives up the population in local jails and state prisons, wasting money. New York taxpayers have spent more than $680 million annually to jail people for these noncriminal infractions.
Community groups—including people directly affected by parole and mass incarceration—came together to address these problems and fix how New York State handles violations of parole. The coalition focused on public safety and effective reentry through the Less Is More: Community Supervision Revocation Reform Act (S.1144A – Benjamin / A.5576A – Forrest). The #LessIsMoreNY Act was introduced in 2018, and more than 300 organizations joined with district attorneys, sheriffs, and former correctional officials to push for its passage. After years of persistent advocacy throughout New York, the state assembly and state senate passed the bill in June 2021. On September 17, 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul signed it into law.
Under Less Is More, people doing well on parole will be rewarded with time reduced from their terms of supervision— called earned-time credits—giving them incentives to comply with the rules. Only in the most serious and repeated cases will re-incarceration for technical violations be an option, and people will get a lawyer and a speedy hearing before that can happen. (For more details, see Tables 1 and 2 in the report Appendix.) Any sanction of incarceration will be capped at 30 days. Parole officers will have smaller, reasonable caseloads. The hundreds of millions of dollars saved can be invested in housing, small business grants, family programs, mental health care, and other important services. These steps will ease inequities and improve public safety.
A major provision of the #LessIsMoreNY Act—the component limiting re-incarceration for technical violations— went into effect immediately when Governor Hochul signed the bill and announced that hundreds of people imprisoned at the Rikers Island jail complex for such noncriminal parole violations would be released immediately. Hundreds more were released from other jails across the state in subsequent weeks. The rest of the new law takes effect on March 1, with the exception of two provisions. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) has until July 17, 2022 to recalculate time assessments (sanctions of incarceration) and release people who were re-incarcerated for violations that were sustained before the law was enacted last September. And DOCCS has until September 1, 2022 to implement the provision for earned-time credits, including calculating and awarding up to two years of retroactive credits for every eligible person who is on parole when the provision is implemented. (Part 1 of this report explains these provisions in detail.)
This report addresses the following:
- A summary of the main provisions of the Less Is More Act
- Progress and challenges with respect to implementation so far
- Next steps and recommendations
This report was authored by
Emily Singletary (Unchained) and gabriel sayegh (Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice) on behalf of the Executive Committee of the #LessIsMoreNY Campaign: A Little Piece of Light, Katal Center, and Unchained
The authors wish to thank the members of the #LessIsMoreNY Working Group for their contributions to this report.