Chris Gelardi is a reporter for New York Focus investigating the state’s criminal-legal system. His work has appeared in more than a dozen other outlets, most frequently The Nation, The Intercept, and The Appeal. He is a past recipient of awards from Columbia and Northwestern universities to cover immigration enforcement, US militarism, contemporary colonialism, and county jails. His investigations into the use of a police gang database in Washington, DC, have spurred lawsuits and legislation. He’s based in Queens.
New York prisons have illegally sent at least 1,100 people to solitary confinement for infractions that aren’t eligible for the punishment, a New York Focus analysis has found.
Rikers staff repeatedly altered records to extend the clock on a 24-hour time limit for holding people in notorious intake cells.
A landmark solitary confinement reform law created a new, “rehabilitative” type of isolation unit. In practice, they’re often little different from the solitary units they were meant to replace.
Lawmakers banned solitary confinement for people with disabilities. But the state prison agency has crafted its own policies.
Five months after a law to scale back solitary confinement went into effect, a majority of the New York prison system’s solitary population had been held there for longer than the law permits.
Prison officials had already seen his genitals three times. But the superintendent ordered a more invasive exam, the lawsuit alleges. (Note: detailed descriptions.)
The Monroe County legislature’s president, Sabrina LaMar, has denigrated public defenders and shut them out of the now-eight-month-long process to appoint the next head of their office.
The partnership split homeless advocates: Some welcomed the additional dollars, arguing “more is better,” while others predicted they would function mainly to keep people off corporate property.
The court’s last term included a slew of cases rolling back defendants’ rights. Progressives hope to reset that trajectory.
Officers trained for the NYPD’s new Neighborhood Safety Teams average nearly double the number of substantiated civilian complaints than the NYPD as a whole.
Two years after the repeal of a state law that kept police performance records secret, documents narrating alleged NYPD abuse are starting to become public. But it could still be years until they’re all released.
As part of an initiative by Mayor Eric Adams, the city has swept the encampment where Jose Hernandez would often sleep nearly 10 times this year.
Twice this year, Kathy Hochul has ordered a State Police-run fusion center to beef up its social media monitoring. Documents show that analysts create fake accounts to do that work.
Adams promised they’d be different. But a roster compiled by New York Focus shows that officers who trained for the new teams allegedly beat, harassed, and illegally arrested people while previously working on plainclothes teams.
“Expect delays, expect secondary screening, expect frustration, and expect to miss your train from time to time.”
A bill in the state legislature would prohibit police from interrogating minors before they consulted with a lawyer.
The final budget made changes to bail law, discovery law, pre-arraignment detention, involuntary commitment and more.
New York Focus obtained and analyzed a proposal presented by Senate leadership to the chamber’s Democratic caucus.
New York state legislators have just days to question phone hacking, forensics, and fusion centers before the budget passes.
Advocates organizing for similar laws say loopholes in Hochul’s proposal make it “virtually meaningless,” and are encouraging the governor to withdraw the measure.