OG BO AKAPARA JR

I am your constituent and I am writing to urge you to co-sponsor important new sentencing reform bills: - Eliminate Mandatory Minimums (S.7871 - Myrie / A.9166 - Meeks) - Second Look (S.7872 - Salazar / A.8894 - Walker) - Earned Time Act (S.7873A - Cooney / A.8462B - Kelles) Mandatory minimum sentencing drives mass incarceration, strips judges of discretion, and grants outsized power to prosecutors to coerce guilty pleas. The Eliminate Mandatory Minimums Act will eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, allowing judges to consider the individual factors in a case. In doing so, this legislation will fully and finally undo the harm of the Rockefeller Drug Law era. The Second Look Act will allow judges to review and reconsider excessive sentences. Under current sentencing laws, incarcerated people have no opportunity to demonstrate to a judge that they have transformed while incarcerated or to seek a reconsideration of their sentences based on changes in law and norms. The Second Look Act will allow incarcerated people to apply for a re-sentencing hearing after they have served 10 years or half of their sentence. Following the federal 1994 Crime Bill, New York State slashed programs for incarcerated people and dramatically limited the time people could earn time off of their sentences. The Earned Time Act will strengthen and expand “good time” and “merit time” laws to encourage personal transformation in prison and reunite families. As your constituent, I urge you to support these three critical bills.