Skip to content
Criminal Justice Budget

State Budget Gives Prisons Half-Billion-Dollar Boost While Threatening Oversight Programs

It’s unclear whether the Correctional Association of New York will have to scale back its nascent reform initiatives.

Chris Gelardi   ·   May 28, 2026
Gove Kathy Hochul at a podium
While the state's prison agency got a hefty boost, the final state budget slashed funding for oversight. | Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
Read the rest of our coverage of the final state budget.

Sign up for Staying Focused, our newsletter keeping readers up to speed on New York politics.

This year’s final New York state budget includes a pot of money meant for “stabilizing the correctional system,” an effort to address the ongoing fallout from a three-week corrections officer strike last year.

The amount is hefty: $535 million on top of the prison agency’s roughly $4 billion annual budget. While much of the money will likely go to the National Guard, whose troops have been covering unstaffed prison posts for over a year, the budget legislation allows the state to spend the funds on any number of initiatives. The prison commissioner needs to submit a plan for the money and ask the state budget director to sign off on it.

The fate of a much smaller pot of money — intended for prison oversight — is far less certain. The strike and its aftermath coincided with blowback after prison guards killed two incarcerated people, and new revelations have since emerged about prison deaths and guards’ increased use of force. As part of a push for accountability last year, the state added $3 million to fund the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit prison oversight organization, which used it to visit more prisons, closely monitor problem facilities, and establish metrics for improvement. The association launched its initiatives with the understanding that the funding — equivalent to half a percent of the “stabilizing” pot — was permanent. Governor Kathy Hochul, however, proposed rescinding it this year.

Photo collage of a desk with a notepad and voice recorder in a newsroom.

Legislators sought to add other prison reform measures to the state budget but largely failed. The Senate wanted to establish a bill of rights for pregnant incarcerated people, while the Assembly proposed ordering the State Commission of Correction, another oversight body, to hire a chief medical examiner to conduct independent investigations into jail and prison deaths. Neither proposal made it into the final budget legislation.

Criminal justice reform advocates are seeking to pass those and other measures — including bills that would release elderly prisoners, let incarcerated people earn time off their sentences, or make it easier for the parole board to grant parole — through the regular legislative process. That’s an uphill battle: Albany is passing the budget eight weeks late, leaving only six scheduled days left in the annual legislative session.

BEFORE YOU GO, consider: If not for the article you just read, would the information in it be public?

Or would it remain hidden — buried within the confines of New York’s sprawling criminal-legal apparatus?

I started working at New York Focus in 2022, not long after the outlet launched. Since that time, our reporters and editors have been vigorously scrutinizing every facet of the Empire State’s criminal justice institutions, investigating power players and the impact of policy on state prisons, county jails, and local police and courts — always with an eye toward what it means for people involved in the system.

That system works hard to make those people invisible, and it shields those at the top from scrutiny. And without rigorous, resource-intensive journalism, it would all operate with significantly more impunity.

Only a handful of journalists do this type of work in New York. In the last decades, the number of local news outlets in the state has nearly halved, making our coverage all the more critical. Our criminal justice reporting has been cited in lawsuits, spurred legislation, and led to the rescission of statewide policies. With your help, we can continue to do this work, and go even deeper: We have endless ideas for more ambitious projects and harder hitting investigations. But we need your help.

As a small, nonprofit outlet, we rely on our readers to support our journalism. If you’re able, please consider supporting us with a one-time or monthly gift. We so appreciate your help.

Here’s to a more just, more transparent New York.

Chris Gelardi
Justice Bureau Chief
A photo of Chris Gelardi
A photo of Chris Gelardi
As New York Focus’s justice bureau chief, Chris Gelardi reports and edits work on the state’s criminal-legal and immigration systems. His writing on cops, jails, ICE, and the US military has appeared in more than a dozen other outlets, most frequently The Intercept… more
More by Chris Gelardi Bluesky Signal Twitter Email
Also filed in Criminal Justice
New York May End Blame Game When Deciding Which Crime Survivors Get State Aid

A bill awaiting the governor’s signature would relax restrictions on who can qualify for victim compensation.

Cassi Feldman
The Haggle

In May, state lawmakers passed a $269 billion budget after haggling for months over thousands of line items and policies affecting New Yorkers.

New York Focus
Bill Stalled in Assembly Could Determine Fate of Hundreds of Sexual Assault Cases

The legislation would make it easier for currently and formerly incarcerated people and child victims to sue the state over allegations of past abuse.

Chris Bragg
Also filed in Budget
Mamdani World Readies for Next Year’s Tax-the-Rich Push

City budget gaps and an ambitious affordability agenda may require pressing Albany again for taxes and aid.

Nick Garber
Hochul Moves to Protect Horseracing From Casino’s Tax Fight

State leaders are expected to pass a bill that avoids resolving how much Resorts World New York City needs to pay.

Nick Garber
New York's Brand-New Casino Is in a $500M+ Fight With the State

Resorts World is floating legislation to avert more than $500 million in payments to the horseracing industry.

Nick Garber