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.
Great Meadow and Sullivan prisons are slated to shut down in November. The state could close up to three more over the next year.
He hopes the settlement will lead to reforms in New York prisons, where three-quarters of trans people say corrections officers have inappropriately touched or sexually assaulted them.
The recently formed Solidarity PAC has mobilized big finance and real estate to target socialists and the Working Families Party.
Advocates charge that New York’s restrictions for sex offense registrants are “vague, expansive, and unnecessary.” On Tuesday, they filed a federal lawsuit to strike them down.
The Senate will consider Daniel Martuscello III’s bid to run New York’s prison and parole agency. His supporters point to his decades of experience. His opponents say that’s the problem.
The police department’s PR team has more than doubled in size in the past two years. Some of its recent hires have histories of dishonesty and misconduct.
New York Focus was on the scene as cops shoved, kettled, and chased students at City College, the second campus where the NYPD razed a Gaza solidarity encampment Tuesday.
After DA Sandra Doorley berated a police officer, Hochul referred her to a commission that is yet to become active — and lacks the authority to issue discipline.
Local regulations haven’t kept up with the rollout of new surveillance tech. Some reformers see Washington as their best hope.
Backing primary opponents to progressive Democrats, the new Solidarity PAC resembles a state-level analog to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Referencing a New York Focus story, Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas introduced legislation to prevent public agencies from naming the medically discredited condition in their reports.
New York Focus has published thousands of pages of county jail oversight records. Browse them in our database.
This year, the governor’s budget contains an agenda to combat retail theft. It looks a lot like last year’s plan to curb gun violence.
New York jails can transfer people with mental illnesses to maximum security prisons, even while they’re legally innocent.
Police training materials link the discredited “excited delirium syndrome” to synthetic marijuana use.
The legislation cites multiple New York Focus investigations in its attempt to safeguard the rights of incarcerated people.
The state council that reviews grievances spent an average of eight seconds on each case in its last meeting — and rejected nearly all of them.
Israeli settlers have unleashed a wave of violence on Palestinians. With tax-deductible donations, New Yorkers can help equip them to carry it out.
Even as experts warn of mass ethnic cleansing in Gaza, New York politicians have remained unwavering in their support for Israel since the Hamas attack. They’ve been less vocal about their state’s ties to the occupation of Palestine.
New York has kept hundreds of people convicted of sex offenses in prison long past their release dates.