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ALBANY — Following Gov. Kathy Hochul’s creation of a new state council to recommend measures to improve the state’s criminal justice system, local advocates and stakeholders are criticizing the move as a political stunt that will bring no real reform.
Last week, Hochul announced the creation of the state Council on Community Justice, which her office described as an advisory group of state and local stakeholders that will “recommend measures to further improve the effectiveness and fairness of the state’s criminal justice system.” In the release, it noted the council also met for the first time in New York City on the same day it was created and is expected to meet on a quarterly basis. The council is being led by Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.
However, reform advocates in the Capital Region and Mohawk Valley are criticizing the council for failing to include on-the-ground advocates throughout the state. Gloversville community activist LaShawn Hawkins, founder of the organization “I can Breathe and I will Speak,” said she wished state officials involved more rural areas in police reform discussions.
“I feel like they need to be more involved. They don’t even know half the stuff that goes on in some of these areas, and I know this for a fact only from recently getting involved with a little bit of politics that I dabbled in,” said Hawkins, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Gloversville City Council in 2021.
Hochul’s office did not respond to questions about whether the council will meet in any regions outside of New York City or when these meetings will take place. In response, a spokeswoman from her office re-sent the original release about the council and noted the council is strictly advisory.
Activists in the Capital Region have been critical of local police department’s policing in recent years amid an increased national scrutiny of policing of black and brown communities. Some activists have criticized police for over-policing minority communities and allege they have reacted to harshly in the past to protests. Since 2021, state Attorney General Letitia James has been investigating the City of Saratoga Springs about alleged civil rights violations against Black Lives Matter activists. The Schenectady Police Department reached a $40,000 settlement in 2020 in a federal lawsuit filed by a man who alleged police kneeled on his head and neck area while attempting to make an arrest, an incident caught on video.
She also highlighted funding included in the state budget for “all facets of the criminal justice system,” which included “a total of $347 million secured by Hochul for enforcement, prosecution, and most important to the work of this council.” It notes the funding supports community-based organizations that prevent and divert people from the criminal justice system.
At the end of this year’s legislative session, Hochul clashed with legislative leaders over the passage of Clean Slate, which would seal many criminal records from the public after a certain number of years if the individual has not been charged with any crimes and has paid their debt to society. It was a priority for leaders, who pushed for a bill that would have automatically sealed records for felonies seven years after sentencing or release from incarceration and sealed records for misdemeanors after three years. Sex offenses are exempt from the bill.
The compromise bill with Hochul that ultimately passed would seal records for felonies after eight years and after three years for misdemeanors. The bill would not apply to sex offenses, murder convictions and other serious felonies. Hochul has until the year to sign or veto it.
Saratoga Black Lives Matter leader Lexis Figuereo said, as with many other similar panels or committees that are created to address inequality in the criminal justice system, he expects little to no reform to actually happen.
“It doesn’t actually come out to be anything, it’s all for show and it doesn’t have any sustainability to it,” he said. “Usually, the people who they put on these panels, these little groups and committees, end up being people who are actually more biased with other things that are not actually creating social justice.”
Saratoga Black Lives Matter activists have in recent years charged the Saratoga Springs Police Department has over-policed minority communities and has responded to harshly to protests. Some of the tensions between activists and police stems from a 2014 wrongful death case involving Darryl Mount, a 22-year-old bi-racial man who ultimately died from injuries after officers chased and arrested him. One of the officers named in the suit, Lt. Tyler McIntosh, was just recently chosen to be the department’s next police chief.
He added he’s seen the same happen in local government, when lawmakers will bring up a resolution or create a committee that has a certain deadline that comes and goes without addressing any of the real issues.
“I want to know what stakeholders they are speaking to? My group is one of the most vocal groups in the Capital Region. I’m sure the governor reads the Times Union and the Daily Gazette and sees us in the news and the advocacy work that we’re doing in our community and throughout all the Capital Region. So, yes, not to be reached out to by whoever or even talk to us is a slap in the face to constituents.”
Figuereo said there’s a big problem with over-policing and mental health issues currently in the Capital Region.
“We also have heroin overdoses that are happening in the opioid epidemic that’s not being treated like it’s very important at all. We know that opioids and drug addiction leads to a lot of things like rarest and encounters with the police,” he said. “We’ve seen people abused by the police who are dealing with drug overdoses, dealing with mental health situations and things like that over and over again.”
The new council also comes at a time of renewed national attention on the racial history of policing in small towns following the release of a heavily-criticized new song by Jason Aldean that paints cities as immoral places while the “country” or rural areas are places of moral high ground.
“In upstate New York, a lot of the time you are ostracized because of the color of your skin being somewhere where you have little to no representation in the places that you live in. We have black politicians who are the most silent and we have white politicians who are louder about black issues than actual black people,” Figuereo said. “[The new council] may look good, be good on paper, but what is the committee going to actually do?”
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