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For the first time under Governor Kathy Hochul, criminal justice was not a dominating feature of New York state legislative news this year. After three years of Hochul demanding rollbacks to landmark 2019 reforms — particularly bail reform — the governor and the legislature seemed content with tinkering at the margins of the state’s criminal laws.
That isn’t to say Hochul abandoned her tough-on-crime ideology. The governor has her playbook — her “copy-and-paste crime-fighting formula,” as we described it in January — and has continued to apply it to issues like retail theft. (Remember last winter, when that was one of New York politicians’ favorite topics?)
Her pause on gunning for criminal justice reforms may be over. With the incoming Trump administration promising “mass deportations,” Hochul has vowed to change state policies to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport people convicted of, in her words, “a whole list” of crimes. As we reported in November, that could contribute to a spike in deportations from New York, which saw a dip in ICE actions between Trump presidencies.
Policy aside, the staff and contributors who bring you New York Focus’s criminal justice coverage focused our efforts on government agencies. Through our investigations into those institutions — namely jails and police — one thing became clearer than ever: Barely anyone in power is watching them.
New York has policies aimed at preventing problem cops from hopping from police department to police department — a blacklist to block so-called wandering officers. But as Sammy Sussman and I uncovered, there are loopholes, and cops fired for sexual impropriety, excessive force, and other misconduct have avoided the sanctions. Sussman also documented how New York police departments can illegally block access to their own disciplinary records. (Check out Sussman and New York Focus contributors’ police transparency project with the investigative journalism nonprofit MuckRock.)
Contributor Laura Robertson took on county jails — which hold people who are denied bail or can’t pay it — documenting their turn to private corporations for medical care. Those companies have deadly track records. One company linked to dozens of deaths pocketed 25 percent of the money it received from nine New York county contracts over five years. Another failed to provide nearly 4,500 hours of medical care a county paid for and missed an identifiable illness that led to a man’s death.
Meanwhile, Eliza Fawcett and I encouraged local watchdogs and our peers in the press to keep their eyes on their jails. We published thousands of pages of jail oversight records in an investigation the Prison Policy Initiative highlighted as one “that newsrooms should emulate in 2025.” The document dump built on our 2023 work that exposed the weak oversight system that allows county jails to violate safety and treatment standards with near impunity.
After three years of playing defense under Hochul, criminal justice reformers are seeking to go on the offensive in 2025.
Advocates, lawmakers, and even a former prison commissioner have been trying to build momentum for sentencing reform ahead of the legislative session, rallying across the state for bills that would let judges reconsider excessive prison sentences, give incarcerated people more opportunities to earn time off of their sentences, and eliminate mandatory minimums.
Reformers are also hoping that this is the year they can start overhauling the parole system — whose dysfunction we covered extensively this year.
The Board of Parole has been understaffed for nearly a decade, leading to overworked board members who rush through making some of the most important decisions of incarcerated people’s lives.
Hochul promised to fully staff the parole board in 2022. But as I uncovered, her efforts have resulted in one blunder after another. One of her picks didn’t make it through the confirmation process after state senators grilled him over his role in violent protest crackdowns during his time as a top police official. Senators dismissed another because they surmised that Hochul had nominated him as a political favor.
Another of her nominees didn’t even make it through parole board training. He was late to meetings and hearings more than he was on time and made questionable excuses for repeated absences, according to documents I uncovered. One of his peers described him as a “narcissist.”
Every part of New York’s criminal justice apparatus that we poke and prod seems to be rife with dysfunction. We’ll continue digging and documenting in 2025. If you have tips, my line is always open: chris@nysfocus.com.