Katal in Albany for SCOC Monthly Meeting & New York for All
Our members, interns and staff at the March State Commission on Corrections Meeting, 3.31.26
Last week, our team attended the March monthly meeting of the State Commission of Correction (SCOC), the government watchdog agency with authority over local jails and state prisons, including Rikers Island. The public portion of the meeting lasted less than four minutes, and the Commission failed to address the recent deaths at Rikers or the crisis unfolding at Bedford Hills women’s prison. See the statement our members and organizational partners made calling on Gov. Hochul to appoint reform-oriented commissioners to ensure the commission fulfills its mandate.
Our member Kevin speaking with his Assemblymember, Karines Reyes, who sponsors NY4ALL, 3.31.26
Following the SCOC monthly meeting, we went to the Capitol to push for the passage of the New York for All Act. The legislation prohibits New York’s state and local government agencies, including police and sheriffs, from colluding with ICE, disclosing sensitive information, and diverting personnel or other resources to further federal immigration enforcement. Getting this bill passed is a necessary step to ensure our immigrant communities are protected from Trump’s deportation.
We did legislative drop-ins where our members, interns, and staff got to speak with their own elected officials about this need to immediately pass New York for All and end collusion with ICE.
Our members, interns, and staff speaking with state legislators about the New York for All Act, 3.31.26
If you have any questions about the State Commission on Corrections and its implementation process , please reach out to Yonah at Yonah@katalcenter.org.
SCOC Complaint Portal and Upcoming Info Session
Thanks to our collective organizing to increase jail and prison oversight, the State Commission of Correction (SCOC) now has an Online Complaint Portal where community members can file grievances. This is a big victory!
The SCOC is mandated with the constitutional authority to ensure that correctional facilities across New York – all local jails and state prisons – are “safe, stable, and humane,” and they have wide-ranging authority to address the conditions behind bars. For decades, the SCOC has consistently failed to meet its mandate. The murders of Robert Brooks in 2024, and Messiah Nantwi in 2025, brought the failures of the SCOC into sharp relief.
After years of organizing by our directly impacted members and over 160 community, advocacy, and faith-based organizations a package of reforms to overhaul the SCOC were passed last year as part of the budget process and in the Omnibus Prison Oversight Bill passed at the end of session. The reforms included requiring the SCOC to make its grievance procedure more accessible by establishing an online portal to accept complaints.
Check out this press release we issued about the online portal featuring quotes from elected officials, our members, and community and faith groups.
To learn more about the new online portal, the reforms passed last year and ways to get involved in implementation, join us on Thursday, April 23rd at 12 pm via Zoom for an Info Session on the SCOC.
If you would like to get involved in our efforts to increase jail, please contact Yonah at Yonah@katalcenter.org.
Deaths at Rikers and Bellevue Beds Opening
On Tuesday, April 7th, the Mayor Mamdani administration announced the opening of 104 hospital-based therapeutic beds at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. As part of the 2019 plan to close Rikers, the City committed to building three off-jail therapeutic facilities at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, and North Central Bronx Hospital. The facility at Bellevue was supposed to open in 2022, but was heavily delayed by the previous mayoral administration. The Mamdani administration also announced they will close the North Infirmary Command, which has a history of deplorable conditions and placing incarcerated people in conditions that equate to solitary confinement.
Mayor Mamdani’s opening of the hospital-based therapeutic beds at Bellevue is a critical step to getting incarcerated people the care they deserve, stopping preventable deaths, and advancing the closure of Rikers. See the press release we issued in response to this news.
This announcement comes almost two weeks after two deaths occurred in DOC custody within a week due to medical emergencies, highlighting in the deadly conditions at Rikers Island. Right now, Rikers serves as the largest mental health facility in New York, and incarcerated people are regularly denied access to quality care. In our November 2025 report, “Rikers Island and Mental Health” with the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay, we called on the city to promptly bring these promised off-jail hospital beds online to help incarcerated people and lower the number of people incarcerated.
We are glad to see the city fulfilling this commitment, and we’re continuing to call on the Mamdani administration to pass a budget that increases funding to alternatives to incarceration, supportive housing, and other proven solutions that safely reduce the jail population without relying on incarceration.
If you have any questions about our Shut Rikers campaign, please contact Melanie at melanie@katalcenter.org.
April Statewide Criminal Justice Reform Call Recap
Yesterday, we held our April Statewide Criminal Justice Reform. We had over 100 people registered for the call! We spent a large portion of the call discussing the yet-again-late New York state budget and the main issues, current bills, laws, and policies still in negotiations. We also heard from a range of organizers and advocates working to protect immigrant New Yorkers by passing New York for All, pushing back against Gov. Hochul’s buffer zone proposal, and working to pass the No Slavery in NY Act, which ends involuntary servitude in state and local correctional facilities in New York state in this session.
The next Statewide Criminal Justice Reform Call is on Thursday, May 14th, from 12-1. Please register for the next Statewide Call on Thursday, May 14th from 12-1pm!
If you have any questions about the statewide call or would like to be a presenter, please contact Yonah at Yonah@katalcenter.org.
Mental Health & Rikers Island Info Session at Silberman School of Social Work
On Wednesday, April 22nd, our Hunter MSW interns Amira Wittenberg and Katherine Ferrante are leading an info session with the Silberman Social Justice Committee to discuss our Mental Health & Rikers report with the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay and ways for the Hunter students, faculty, and the larger community to join the fight to #ShutRikers.
Here’s the details about the webinar:
- Date: Wednesday, April 22
- Time: 1-2 pm
- Location: Silberman School of Social Work, Room 218
- Snacks will be provided, and all are welcome.
RSVP here to attend the info session.
Please reach out to Yonah at 347-201-2768 with any questions.
Inspiring Resistance This Week
– More than a dozen protesters from the New York Immigration Coalition were arrested last week after blocking entrances to the chambers of both the state Assembly and state Senate in Albany and refusing to disperse. They were there to call for action on immigration-related legislation, including bills that would keep local law enforcement from cooperating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Read more about it here.
-Tax the Rich protesters disrupted Gov. Kathy Hochul while she was speaking at the Javits Center, demanded that she “tax the rich,” which led her to end her presser. Read more about it here.
For more examples of resistance, check out Choose Democracy’s Resist List!
Quotes of the Week
“What is needed is a realization that power with out love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing nthe demands of justice. Justice at it’s best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Creating community means building relationships that go beyond on narrow issue or campaign, and caring about each person as a vital part of the fabrib of our movment” – Javior Valdes, former co-executive director of Make the Road NY ”
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Email: info@katalcenter.org
Phone: 646.875.8822.