Nearly every space in New York’s prisons and jails must be monitored by cameras at all hours under a set of oversight measures state lawmakers passed near the close of their 2025 voting session.
The package combines nine reform bills filed this year after the fatal beatings of two incarcerated men at adjacent prisons in Oneida County. A total of 21 workers at Marcy and Mid-State correctional facilities face charges of murder, manslaughter and other offenses in the deaths of 43-year-old Robert Brooks and 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi.
A single bill consolidating those proposals was introduced this week and approved by both the Senate and Assembly on Thursday, June 12. It will be delivered to Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign or veto.
“This bill is a serious step toward finally reforming our prisons,” state Sen. Julia Salazar, the New York City Democrat who sponsored the bill, said in a statement after the Senate vote. “There is more work to do, including an expansion of pathways for release, but this is progress, it will make a difference, and I’m proud to stand behind it.”
The Democratic-sponsored bill cleared the Assembly in a party-line vote of 93-49, with Democrats in support and Republicans in opposition. The Senate vote was 36-23, also falling along party lines.
NY prison camera mandate: What impact would it have?
New York already has installed surveillance cameras in 11 of its 42 prisons and is carrying out plans to equip another 17 sites, according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Cameras will be added to the remaining facilities with $400 million put in last month’s state budget at Gov. Kathy Hochul’s request.
The bill passed on Thursday requires those cameras be kept on at all times and cover every prison area except inside cells, showers and toilet areas. All recordings must be preserved for at least a year — or five years if they pertain to allegations of staff misconduct. Any that are relevant to the death of an incarcerated person must be turned over to the Attorney General’s Office within 72 hours.
In a statement to the USA TODAY Network before the vote, DOCCS officials declined to comment on the bill but said they’re “aggressively working” with another state agency to install cameras. They praised their use, saying they have “proven to reduce violence, making facilities safer for staff and the incarcerated population while holding people accountable for any wrongdoing.”
The state also equips correction officers with body-worn cameras to record interactions with the incarcerated men and women. They are fully deployed in 32 prisons so far and are set to be universal in the other 10 by the end of the summer, a DOCCS spokesman said this week.
No wall-mounted cameras were present when Brooks was killed at Marcy prison in December and Nantwi was killed at Mid-State in March. But in Brooks’ case, his beating was recorded on several officers’ body-worn cameras, unbeknownst to them. Those videos sparked public outrage after their release, and they enabled authorities to quickly bring criminal charges.
Would county jails need to comply with camera mandate?
The bill applies its camera mandate to “any institution or correctional facility,” which could encompass not only New York’s state-run prisons but the jails operated by New York City and the 57 counties outside the city. Salazar’s office confirmed the bill is intended to apply to those facilities as well.
That could open a legal dispute with county sheriffs who run the jails if the bill becomes law.
Many jails already have some cameras installed, but not enough to provide “the complete coverage that the bill would require,” Peter Kehoe, executive director of the New York State Sheriffs Association, told the USA TODAY Network this week.
Kehoe said his group believes the bill’s camera requirement doesn’t extend to county jails as its sponsors intended, and suggested that “the courts may have to sort that out someday.”
What else is in the prison reform package?
The bill takes numerous other steps to increase prison oversight and public transparency. Among them:
The bill didn’t include steps that advocates had sought to enable more incarcerated people to be released before finishing their sentences. They were disappointed by that omission but applauded the agreed bundle of reforms in statements this week.
“The omnibus package is a step forward in creating accountability and oversight for a system that for far too long has lacked both,” said Megan French-Marcelin, senior director of New York State policy for the Legal Action Center.
Robert Brooks Jr., whose father was killed at Marcy Correctional Facility, applauded the reforms as “encouraging” and said, “the rampant abuses that occur by correction officers when no one is watching must stop.”
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY prison reform bill spurred by 2 prison beating deaths: What’s in it?
Reporting by Chris McKenna, New York State Team / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
