Written by Tandy Lau for New York Amsterdam News on 9/18/25
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.