Across our country today, probation and parole too often function as a revolving door to reincarceration, keeping people entangled with the criminal justice system. People that are trying to successfully rejoin their families, jobs, and communities are being sent back behind bars for crimeless, technical violations like missing an appointment with a probation officer or failing a drug test — ultimately driving the mass incarceration crisis. With 4.5 million Americans currently on probation or parole — more than double the number of people in prison— momentum is growing for major reforms to the system.
Monday, August 19th, #LessIsMoreNY Coalition partner and co-auther of the Less Is More legislation, the Columbia University Justice Lab, launched EXiT: Executives Transforming Probation and Parole.
EXiT is an association of more than 60 commissioners and chiefs of probation and parole calling for the end of Mass Supervision and to make community supervision smaller, less punitive and more helpful and hopeful nationwide.
In New York, we have been fighting to pass transformative parole legislation for the exact reasons why now even the corrections officials think probation and parole should be reformed. We commend the Justice Lab for launching this national effort, and we will use this momentum to demand Albany give New Yorkers the fair parole system we deserve in 2020 through the passage of Less Is More: Community Supervision Revocation Reform Act (S.1343B- Benjamin/A5493A-Mosley).
Learn more about EXiT and the reforms the group is advocating, here.
Learn more about our#LessIsMoreNY parole legislation, here.
If you want to get involved in New York in our #LessIsMoreNY campaign for parole reform, please contact Cedric Fulton at cfulton@katalcenter.org or at 518.965.6771.
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