April 28, 2023
Responding to the latest news that Gov. Kathy Hochul continues to try to force bail rollbacks in the FY24 budget in the face of vehement opposition, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem today released this statement:
“By continuing to try and force through rollbacks of bail reform in the 2024 budget, Governor Hochul has effectively announced that the deaths of 36 New Yorkers at Rikers in the last two years means nothing to her, and that those who can’t afford bail – the majority of them Black, brown and Latinx people — deserve to be condemned to degrading and deadly conditions,” said Alice Fontier, Managing Director of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. “We are grateful to the lawmakers who have resisted this immoral backroom dealing, and we will continue to fight any rollbacks to the bail laws that will expand pretrial jailing.”