Report Finds Worsening Racial Disparities in New York Parole Process

Racial disparities in parole decisions continue to worsen across New York state, with new data showing a widening gap from a year ago.

The state’s parole board is 33% less likely to release a person of color than a white person, according to a report by the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University analyzing data from 2022 to March 2025.

“Despite all of the increased scrutiny of these racial disparities in parole release decisions, the last six months show that these egregious racial disparities have remained, and even slightly worsened,” the report states.

Trends in parole decisions mirror racial discrimination and prejudice in other parts of the criminal justice system, said Jason Williamson, the center’s executive director and co-author of the report.

“There’s no rational explanation for that disparity,” Williamson said.

The report, released Wednesday, is an update to an analysis published last fall, focusing on a three-year period that has seen “the widest gap in release rate racial disparities since this data began to be collected in 2016.”

“Not coincidentally, this three-and-a-quarter-year period coincides with Governor Hochul’s time in office,” the updated report states.

In a statement, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office reiterated its past rebuttals, stressing that the state’s parole board is an independent body and “the sole entity that considers and determines whether or not parole-eligible individuals should be released.”

The 16 members of the parole board are nominated by the governor and approved by the state Senate. Many of the current group of members come from a law enforcement background, and all but four have expired terms – yet still sit on the board.

Criminal justice advocates, judges and district attorneys have pushed for reform over the parole board’s standards for release in recent years. Civil rights advocates, including the late Hazel Dukes – who led the NAACP and New York’s Conference – have said the state’s parole system unjustly prolongs incarceration of Black and Brown people.

The discrepancy in release rates for people of color compared with white people jumped from a 19 percentage-point gap during 2016-2021, to a 32 percentage-point difference in 2022-2025.

“The disparities are getting worse,” Williamson said. “This injustice only compounds the harm of well-documented racial disparities in policing, prosecution and sentencing.”

According to the report, 4,150 more people of color could have been granted parole since 2016, if release rates were the same as that of white people.

Williamson said the racial disparities are largely a result of implicit and explicit biases that shape the parole board’s decisions.

‘There’s a lot more the governor could have been doing’

That process, Williamson said, “can be clouded by race, racism and people’s unconscious biases coming out and not giving the people in front of them the benefit of the doubt in ways that they may be willing to do for white folks who are in front of them.”

And the governor, Williamson said, plays a large role in maintaining that status quo.

“I think there’s a lot more that the governor could have been doing to populate the board with people who are willing to be more reasonable in entertaining these applications,” Williamson said. “There are a number of board members who should have cycled off of the parole board at this point, but the governor has not followed through in making that happen.”

The governor’s office wrote in a statement that the administration “continues to review additional nominees for appointment.”

In a statement, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which oversees the state’s prison system and the parole board, wrote that in making parole decisions, the parole board follows a wide range of “statutory requirements which take into consideration many factors.”

That includes statements from the victims and their families, the person’s criminal history, their accomplishments while serving time and, according to the department, “potential to successfully reintegrate into the community, and perceived risk to public safety.”

NY lawmakers consider state’s parole process

While criminal justice advocates have called for new parole board members who have experience in backgrounds besides law enforcement – including social workers and formerly incarcerated people – they’re also pushing to change the state’s parole process.

New York lawmakers are currently considering legislation that would require that the parole board make its decisions mainly around the person’s rehabilitation and transformation while having served time.

The legislation, called the Fair and Timely Parole Bill, would also remove a requirement that the board consider if an offense is so serious that parole would “undermine respect” for the law – a standard that criminal justice advocates have said is vague and problematic.

A second piece of legislation, called the Elder Parole bill, expands parole eligibility for individuals over the age of 55 who already have served at least 15 years.

Assemblymember Maritza Davila, a Democratic lawmaker from Brooklyn who cosponsors the Elder Parole Bill, said it’s “not surprising to see racial disparities in our criminal justice system.”

“To learn that thousands of Black and Brown families could have been reunited, but for the inequity in the parole system, it’s just sad. There’s no better word than sad, and perhaps outrageous,” Davila wrote in a statement.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has endorsed the two bills, along with Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. So has Williamson. “Legislation and the transformation of the parole board go hand in hand,” Williamson said in support of the two bills.

Story by Jeongyoon Han

Jeongyoon Han is a Capitol News Bureau reporter for the New York Public News Network, producing multimedia stories on issues of statewide interest and importance.

Image: Freepik