BILL NUMBER: S8498

SPONSOR: SEPULVEDA
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the executive law, in relation to permitting emergency
medical parole during a time of crisis

 
PURPOSE:

To authorize the board of parole to release certain prisoners in an
emergency.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 adds a new section 259-T to the executive law. Section 2
provides an effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

              

COVID-19 hits hardest in dense population centers or clusters where
people gather in close proximity. We have all been told to keep at least
six feet away from other people, to wash our hands, clean door knobs and
other hard surfaces that people touch with anti-viral cleaning agents,
work from home, avoid all non-essential human contact. None of this is
possible in prisons where nearly all movement is group movement, and
where people live in open dorms with as many as 60 beds or in tiny cells
with poor ventilation. Hundreds of correctional staff and prisoners have
contracted the virus and, at the date of this writing, sixteen prisoners
and four staff members have died. The prison population is on average
older and sicker than the general population, so we can expect more
deaths than in the general population. The current medical parole stat-
utes do not permit the parole board to release vulnerable people during
a time of crisis.

This bill, which would apply to any declared emergency situation in
which lives were in danger, instructs the Board of Parole to order
medical parole release for vulnerable people with a disability that
makes them high risk for death, disease or harm due to the emergency
conditions, who have a home to go, and who do not pose an unreasonable
public safety risk. In the case of COVID-19, lowering the density of the
prisons would allow officers and prisoners to better deal with the
disease, to have more personal space, and to maintain order and hygiene.

This bill would cut through red tape and would allow the decision to
release prisoners to rest with the Board, which has experience evaluat-
ing their dangerousness or suitability for release. Clearly if an indi-
vidual violates the conditions of his or her parole release, he or she
would be returned to prison.  This bill would allow the Board to release
prisoners in order to save the lives of the vulnerable and to reduce the
prison population in order to more efficiently and safely manage correc-
tional facilities at a time of crisis.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

Will save the state money by lowering the prison population and lowering
medical costs for incarcerated people.

 
LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:  Immediately.