Thomas and Lydia condemn New York's proposed "woke" parole bills, which they argue would release violent offenders like the Son of Sam killer despite dangerous systemic failures. They highlight the lack of cameras in prison medical wings, citing the death of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility and a 20% rate of sanctioned doctors within the state correction department. While noting California's stricter elderly parole criteria, they criticize Governor Hochul for potentially vetoing legislation that ignores recidivism data and prioritizes ideology over public safety, ultimately framing these reforms as a virus threatening societal order. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
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Wokeness as a Virus00:15:17
What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming?
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic, hands down.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, Instead of go go boots, the seductive Actress Green Eminem will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
I'm Thomas.
That over there is a dying woman.
The person who used to be Lydia.
That sounds so good.
Final podcast, a farewell episode.
Poor Lydia.
Yeah, this is pretty bad.
Normally, the kid bullshit viruses hit me way harder than you, but this one.
I don't even know if any of the kids had it.
Like, I mean, they were probably carriers.
Oh, yeah.
You got it from all your other social interactions.
No, I just mean like no one had this.
And all of a sudden, I'm dead.
So that's really fun.
Rolled snake eyes on the immunity thing.
For whatever this virus was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think everybody had it.
The kids were sick for a little bit.
Yeah.
Not like this.
I know.
It got you.
Yeah.
Got me bad.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Got me bad.
Yeah.
But the pod must go on.
Yeah.
Hopefully, this episode is listenable and people are not bothered by how my sound is bad.
Yeah.
We're doing this.
We are not doing a.
Gavel gavel for any gavel gavel listeners.
We can't record because we're due to do the sandwich trial and record transcripts, and we can't have the transcript be this.
So we're going to have to take a rain check on that, but the show must go on on WTW.
And you have something for us today?
I'm excited to hear it.
What do you got for us?
And related to me being sick and potentially dying, we are going to talk about a New York Post article that came out.
And it says woke bills could spring New York's worst killers, including Son of Sam and John Lennon assassin.
Okay, already he's not New York's worst killer.
He killed John Lennon a hundred years ago.
That's not even, yeah.
That's how it's not, it's not.
I mean, I, it wouldn't be like super cool if you let him out, probably.
But honestly, I don't give a shit.
I know Yoko wants to keep him in there forever, but like, I would assume, in fact, I know he killed John Lennon because he's severely mentally ill at the time, was going through a crisis.
I don't really think that guy's been a danger to society, really, but I, I mean, I'm not.
I'm not the parole board, but like, I doubt it's that big of a deal.
Yeah.
So we're going to get into it.
Got to do it after the break, though.
But we'll dive into the article and what these bills really say, of course.
So the wokists want to let all the criminals out, right?
They sure do.
Yeah.
That's the thing about the wokists us and the Pope, we're soft on crime, you know?
Yeah.
Us and the Pope, we're like, we like criminals.
Hey, our policy platform, do more crime, everyone.
I was going to say, do more crime all the time.
And we want criminals to get out of jail.
Why?
No fucking idea.
Why would that be what we want?
Who knows?
Yeah.
But apparently it is.
That's our, that's, we're dead set on it.
We love crime.
We sure do.
It's pretty obvious that you're strawberrying the other side when you're like, they like criminals.
Why would that be?
Do you think we're like the Batman villains?
Like, why would we want bad guys to do?
It's just a difference in opinion on criminal justice.
But no, you can't ever just present it how it is.
So can't wait to hear this very chill take on what we think about criminals.
All right.
Well, we'll take our usual break.
Avoid the ads and support Lydia's.
Cancer treatment.
No, I'm just kidding.
I shouldn't.
It is on our illness journey.
Yes.
Patreon.com slash where there's woke.
Really appreciate it.
And also spread the show.
Hey, if you can't support, we get it, but you know, share it with somebody, tell somebody about it.
Word of mouth is really how Lydia got sick, and it's also how we spread the show.
Both, both things, how you spread things.
Yeah, super spreader events, right?
Yeah, that's what we're looking for.
We're looking for our next super spreader event, guys.
All right.
So, when are all these criminals getting out?
I'm excited.
Well, okay.
If Albany, the capital of New York, passes a pair of woke parole bills, Some of the most infamous killers in history, the New York Post says, including the folks that I mentioned before we took the break, could soon be freed.
The first one that they cite, the Elder Parole Bill, would let violent criminals dodge their minimum sentences, regardless of how heinous their crimes, and be granted early parole hearings after they've turned 55 and served 15 years of their sentences.
A second lefty measure, the Fair and Timely Parole Bill, I'm quoting from the article, by the way.
This is not me.
I was going to say, already it doesn't even sound that bad, but yeah.
Would require the state parole board to release convicts regardless of the severity of their crimes, unless they are a quote, current danger to the public.
Yeah, I mean, that kind of makes sense.
Both bills could result in the release of vicious killers, even if they were sentenced to life in prison.
A law enforcement source they quote here.
Oh, yeah, okay.
Yeah, great.
Awesome.
Quote, consider some of the most heinous and noteworthy people in dot dot dot prison today.
So who knows what they remove from that quote?
This must be a written comment that they receive from someone they don't want to say.
They will undoubtedly be released within the next two years if these bills are signed into law.
Undoubtedly, yeah.
I'm pretty sure it said they would get like a parole hearing early.
Yes.
Okay.
We'll get into it.
And then it cites the sponsors, the lead sponsors for the bills.
Sponsored by big crime.
Yeah.
The lead sponsors are a Democrat out of Manhattan and it says of Harlem next to it.
And then an assemblywoman, Democrat of Brooklyn.
Saddle.
Yeah.
What are you trying to say there, folks?
Jesus.
Yeah.
Under the measure, inmates who are sprung are entered into community supervision as if they served their full sentence.
If they are rejected for parole, they must be informed in writing, quote, as to the factors and reasons for the denial.
Like, that's bad?
Spoiler alert.
That's exactly what happens in the parole process anymore.
What are you talking about?
That's the standard.
Before you just said no, and that's it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's the standard.
And automatically get a new chance at freedom after two years.
Again, that's the standard.
How dare we ever let someone get out of prison?
Every two years, victims' families would be dragged back to the parole board to fight against the release of their loved one's killer.
They have to be dragged, too.
You have to actually, in the bill, it says they can't just go.
You have to drag them.
You have to make sure that their feet are on the floor.
Yeah.
You know why?
Because we like the criminals and we hate the victims.
Yeah.
Boo, victims.
Yeah.
You should have committed crime if you wanted my sympathy.
We like John Lennon's assassin and we don't like John Lennon.
Okay, so that's the elderly parole one that they're talking about there.
Now, the Fair and Timely Parole Bill's lead sponsors.
Our radical socialist state senator, Julia Salazar, Democrat out of Brooklyn, and Assemblyman David Weprin, Democrat out of Queens.
The legislation makes it much easier.
And then the copy of this article is broken up by a news article image from 1977 that says Son of Sam police release new sketches.
Okay.
What does that have to do with it?
Just trying to remind us of like these are bad people, I guess.
I don't know.
The legislation makes it much easier for jailbirds to be set free, provided they're model prisoners.
Jailbirds.
No matter how bloodthirsty their crime.
And then it talks about some advocates for the bills.
And I want to just say specifically how they frame Lex Luthor.
The People's Campaign for Parole Justice says Salazar and Weprand's legislation would, quote, provide more meaningful parole reviews.
Olivia Murphy, a violent crime survivor and policy and communications associate for Release Aging People in Prison, defended both bills, saying inmates, quote, who have taken accountability for their crimes and done the hard work of transforming their thinking and behavior, end quote, should be freed.
Quote, the evidence is clear that forcing completely rehabilitated elders to spend their final years in prison costs a fortune and delivers zero public safety benefit.
Said Murphy, whose advocacy campaign is funded by billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundation.
I bet it is not.
And other far left groups.
God.
Quote, they have the lowest rates of free offending once released and the highest incarceration costs.
And then we get some more mugshots.
We get John Lennon's assassin.
And then we get David McClary.
A cop killer.
That's the next one that they want to do there.
And that he's appeared before the state parole board eight times.
And then we get thoughts from the Manhattan Institute, of course.
Oh, God.
Rafael Manguel, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, believes both measures are gaining steam in Albany and could pass as soon as this year.
Quote, I think it's a real risk, especially given the recent decline in crime in New York City.
I think that might have led to a space where people might be more tolerant than they were five years ago of engaging in this kind of stuff.
Yeah, we need to keep crime up so that they'll have the proper fear of crime.
Yeah.
He added, Quote, it really shouldn't matter how well somebody behaves in prison.
You should have behaved before you got there.
Yeah, I guess, kind of in a way, but if they're elderly, I don't really give a shit.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Human beings are complicated.
We change.
Quote, you hear people who will say with very full confidence, including the advocates, that the likelihood of a person reoffending zeroes out in older age.
No, it doesn't.
A majority of state prisoners who are released will reoffend.
Oh, what's the thing that you're missing there?
Guy from Manhattan Institute, you're saying a majority of, first of all, that's not true.
A majority of state prisoners who are released will reoffend.
It's not actually the majority, but he's leaving out the age component.
So he starts at the likelihood of a person reoffending zeros out in older age.
And then he says this other statistic that doesn't account for age.
It's just all people who are paroled and recidivism for all people who are paroled.
Nonsense.
Anyway, the sibling of one murder victim found it unbelievable that his brother's psychotic killer could be released after serving only 15 years of a 25 years to life sentence.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, that's, is it really that unbelievable?
It's like 25 years, 15 versus 25.
I mean, okay.
It's a little shorter, but.
Quote, my brother was brutally tortured to death throughout the night, said Michael Pravia, the brother of 19 year old Pace University student Kevin Pravia, who was murdered in 2008.
Quote, you know, I just feel like we're living in a time where it feels like it's another form of corruption, you know, letting these devils out of prison to harass the masses.
They will have blood on their hands, Pravia said of the legislators who passed the bills.
His brother's killer, homeless drifter Jeremy Cancel, is in Auburn Correctional Facility.
And again, we get like news articles and stuff of all these mugshots or things from John Lennon's assassin, et cetera, et cetera.
Quote, he was proud of his crimes, said Pravia, whose brother was living near Union Square.
We were going all in on John Lennon when the people who were falling for the shit probably would want John Lennon to be murdered.
Right.
Again.
Yeah.
And then he gives, they give details about how his brother was killed, which is terrible.
We don't need to get into that.
He says that the person who killed his brother smiled and laughed at his sentencing in 2010, sending the victim's brother into a fury.
Yeah, okay.
I do not fault this guy whatsoever.
He says, There is not one ounce of me that thinks he is rehabilitated or has the ability to be rehabilitated.
I think he's truly a sociopath.
He's bragged that he would do it again.
And then it goes on if the fair and timely bill passes, Cancel, the man who murdered his brother, is likely to get out if he has a clean prison record, the law enforcement source said.
I doubt that.
So the guy who said, Yeah, I know.
We're not even to the part where he tells the obvious stuff, but like, I kind of doubt when you've already just based on what they're giving me, it was like, well, you got to be elderly and like good behavior and not looked at as a threat.
I'm pretty sure the guy who makes like cut a Across the throat, gestures to the parole board and says, I definitely will kill again, signed me.
I don't think that will qualify.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You might be on the right track.
Yeah.
I don't want spoilers, but it's not clear if Governor Kathy Hochul, who's running for reelection and needs liberal NYC to support her, would veto the two parole reform bills.
A Hochul rep declined to elaborate on where Hochul stands on both pieces of legislation, but said, The governor is committed to ensuring the safety of New Yorkers and will review any bill that passes both houses of the legislature.
Presumptive Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blankman said he vehemently.
Oh, that's almost like Blank Boxman.
Yeah, it is.
It's very, very close.
Bruce Blankman said he vehemently opposes bills.
I think they mean opposes these bills, like these two bills.
It says opposes bills.
It says opposes bills.
He's an anti all bill.
You know, that's not, that's a Freudian slip right there.
The Republican wants no bills or whatever.
Is it Republican or is it like?
Oh, it's Republican.
Okay.
I'm not sure if it was like a centrist or something.
No, he's definitely a Republican.
Accused Hochul of pushing for the release of killers.
That's what she's doing.
Kathy Hochul has fast tracked the release of violent criminals, even those who've killed police officers, and will certainly grant another get out of jail free cards to even more dangerous thugs.
Another thing we want to do, we want to get dangerous criminals out of jail for free.
Yeah, for free.
And then set them out onto the New York City streets because that's good for business.
I'm afraid to say it.
And maybe we need to edit this out.
I don't know why we want to do that.
Like, why is that our.
Why is that our policy?
I know it's, I know as a wokest, it has to be my policy, but like, why?
I think we need to have a meeting with headquarters.
Yeah, I don't remember why we just want to let all the murderers out of jail.
That doesn't seem like something we want to do.
But then again, I know that I, as a wokest, am just dead set on it.
Like, I want that.
Yeah, of course.
Okay.
I feel it in my bones.
Might need to cut that out, but let me know if you get the answer to that.
Okay.
And he ends the Hokel pro criminal era ends the day I take office.
I seem to remember something, I don't know, a moment ago about, How crime was as low as it's been, or whatever, like it's way down, and that's why these people aren't understanding we're not afraid enough.
Basically, was that's what I remember the sentence being, yeah, exactly.
And then I think you just said the Hokel pro crime, the pro criminal era, what's the song, Prokol Haram?
What is that song that or the band?
It's the one we could never get in trivia, oh, Haram or something.
What is it?
Yeah, Prokol Haram, Prokol, the pro crime, Kathy Hokel.
Sorry, Hokel Prokol.
My brain just twisted in half.
Pro crime hokal or pro kol her no, just anyway, the pro hokal, no, the pro crime hokal era, pro hokal, pro criminal era, the hokal pro criminal era.
Weirdly, I guess she's not very good at being pro.
We got to find a better pro criminal person as wokus because it seems like crime's way down.
The Pro Crime Era00:05:20
So she's not New York, yeah.
Can we get like I don't know, like some incentive system, vouchers for crime, like you get stuff when you do crimes, you know, like you get reimbursed by the government if you do crimes.
There's programs we can do to get crime higher, as we wokus want to do, you know?
We got to get the policy wonks in on it.
Good idea.
Another killer who could be released is cop killer David McClary, who was sentenced to 25 years to life for assassinating rookie NYPD officer Edward Byrne as he sat in his car guarding the home of a witness in a Queens drug case in 1988.
Howard Pappy Mason, an infamous nickname for the punching pin.
If you have a nickname like that, you get to get out.
That's actually my woke agenda.
If you have a good nickname like that, it has to be a good one like that, though.
He was convicted for ordering McClary to kill the young police officer.
McClary, who was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for pulling the trigger, is 60 years old and serving his time.
At Wend Correctional Facility in Erie County.
McClary has been denied parole eight times since becoming eligible in 2013, forcing the victim's family to argue repeatedly to keep him behind bars.
Yeah, but that's how it already is.
Yeah, what is the change that's from these bills?
They shouldn't even have such a thing as parole, I think is what they think.
I think that is honestly what they think.
His release is opposed by the Police Benevolent Association, which has been fighting a wave of 43 cop killer releases since 2017, when parole guidelines were modified to place greater emphasis on an inmate's.
Quote, progress in prison rather than the severity of their crime.
The president of PBA said, quote, passing either of these bills.
A bullying association?
Police Benevolent Association.
Passing either of these bills would be a cruel and despicable blow to the families of our fallen heroes.
There is no age and no formula that can absolve cop killers of their heinous crimes or entitle them to rejoin society.
We will fight tooth and nail alongside the families of our murdered police officers to ensure these two bills do not become law.
End of article.
The first comment, by the way, says, Notice they never tell us why they are doing this stuff.
It's all part of destroying our way of life.
Yeah.
The belief that our current laws are made to protect capitalism.
The enemy knows that they can exploit our kindness, that will allow things to happen at a certain pace and never push back until it's too late.
They're winning, folks.
Sad to say, but they are.
Trump is a stopgap.
Boy.
Post Trump, we lose it all.
Europe has fallen.
We are next.
The first sentence or two of that bullshit, I kind of at least followed the bullshit line of thought.
Yeah.
And then it lost me.
It's incredible.
And obviously, this can't just live in the New York Post.
Fox News is picking it up too.
The Suffolk County District Attorney, Ray Tierney, has been talking a lot about this in news conferences and stuff.
He says while these bills are often framed as reforms and have innocuous titles, in reality, they will push thousands of New York's most violent criminals out onto our streets.
Thousands.
How many older killers could there be?
Are there thousands?
Well, what's interesting is it's actually the percentage of people in the New York prison system that are 55 and older has increased.
Even and the population has decreased, so overall, yeah.
But if the thing is like if you're worried about like the worst of the worst killers, right?
I feel like there's a reason they did John Lennon's killer 80 times, as an example.
You kept saying, like, and then there's more about John Lennon's kill, you know, it's like there aren't that many of the most infamous killers, just kind of by definition, yeah.
And part of the Fox News article, because the New York Post didn't really touch on this very much, is Fox News has to evoke California, scare the people more.
We actually inlawed crime.
Yeah.
Sorry, we un outlawed crime.
There's now no such thing as crime.
So, specifically talking about the elderly parole bill that's up, it says that it would impose a California style elder parole in New York and take the concept one step further, the officials warned.
The Empire State's version would abolish life without parole, quote, even for serial killers, cop killers, and racist murderers.
Yeah.
And really, they care about the racism of it.
That's what we really care about.
We actually, in California, it's so bad in California.
We have it so, like, if you don't do crime, we put you in jail.
Oh, yeah.
And if you do do crime, we take you out of jail.
Yeah.
Because, like, it is the woke capital, and we did decide.
It's very like a purge.
Weirdly, yeah, we decided that we like crime.
We're pro crime.
It's so weird.
I don't really know why we did that, but probably just to trigger the MAGA.
Oh, yeah.
Why not?
Yeah.
News Nation also covered this again, citing John Lennon's assassin.
News Nation?
I don't remember.
Just right wing nonsense.
I wasn't sure if it was like a recurring character.
I should remember.
Yeah, I don't know about remembering, but I think we have cited some of their stuff before.
Sure.
Okay.
So now we know what the right wing is talking about with regard to these bills.
Insofar as you can.
Yeah, I mean, I read the words, right?
We know what words they are using.
What do the bills actually say?
So, I want to spend probably the majority of our time on the elder parole bill because I think there's a lot of great stuff there.
And then we'll also talk about the fair and timely parole bill because those are really like the two pieces that are frustrating the right so much right now.
So, the elder parole bill is for any of our listeners who are in New York and want to follow along through the legislative process for this.
Timely Parole Release00:15:06
Senate Bill S 454.
And the summary says, That it just adds new subdivisions 18 and 19 to section 259 of the executive law regarding state board of parole functions, powers, and duties.
Subdivision 18 provides that a person 55 or older who has served at least 15 years of a sentence shall have an interview with the board of parole to determine whether they should be released to community supervision within 60 days of their 55th birthday or the last day of the 15th year of their sentence, whichever is later.
If release is not granted, the person shall have a subsequent interview no more than 24 months later.
Subdivision 19 requires the Board of Parole to report quarterly to the governor, legislature, and public about the outcomes of elder parole because, yeah, they want to know if it's working.
Is this a good policy or not?
Why 55?
Because I kind of had that question too.
It's like, why is New York wanting to do 55 as their kind of determining factor for that counts as an elder?
This is something that I saw some coverage get really up in arms about because they're like, 55 is not old at all.
Like, that person is still, you know, they can still work and stuff if they're out.
On the outside, and you know, whatever, like that's not an old person.
The fact of the matter is, the New York State Department of Correction and Community Supervision already defines adults that are 55 years of age or older as their elder population because when people are incarcerated, they actually experience accelerated aging.
I was actually going to make a joke like, well, a prison 55 is like a yes, yeah, I mean, that's that's exactly what it is being fed shitty food, stressed, limited time outside, yeah, yeah.
You're being yelled at, like you're not.
They might as well be me doing podcasts.
Yeah, there you go.
Exactly.
I'm already 80.
Prison 55 is the same as podcast 55.
Sometimes I think about getting in prison just so I can get back more exercise, better quality of life.
So I thought that was really interesting and a point worth talking about.
Now, it was mentioned in the articles too about the cost.
It's significant.
I mean, you and I both have experience with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation through our state government work that we did before podcasting.
And we always talked about.
You know, because we were in the budget shop, we always talked about how much money does it cost to incarcerate a person over the course of a year.
Now, New York, I think the number is in general for a lot of their younger population.
I want to say it's like $44,000, I think is what I was seeing.
Per year?
Per year per inmate.
Once you get to that elder population, New York State is spending between $100,000 and $240,000 per elderly prisoner.
Yeah, just like healthcare costs and stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
It's healthcare.
It's a lot of times they're going to have more specific diets that they have to follow.
I mean, honestly, as a victim's family, you might want them to have to face the American health care system when they get out rather than the one like that.
In a way, if we're saying, rather than a free one that's being provided by all the taxpayers, if we're saying, oh, it's too much money to take care of them in prison, so we need to release them so that no one has to take care of them so they die, that is kind of what we're doing, to be honest.
Yeah.
The other piece that's mentioned in this bill, when they're talking about the justification, is they're trying to get ahead of that talking point, too, where they say, Once you're 55, you're out of here.
You know, like everyone's going to be released once they're 55.
It specifically says, as the justification connected with the bill, it would not require anyone, regardless of their age, to be released.
Rather, it would empower the parole board to use its discretion by individually evaluating a person based on the factors established, already established in section 259I of the executive law.
They also already have medical parole considerations.
So, this is kind of augmenting or like building off of that.
Apparently, that went into effect in 2009.
And for those that are worried that the, you know, elder parole thing is going to have these disastrous effects, right?
Yeah.
Unfortunately, look at the medical parole impact and how it didn't have much of an impact at all, actually.
Unfortunately, research looked at what happened when that went into effect, and almost nobody was granted parole.
So they just didn't even do it.
Or it wasn't granted timely and they died before they got paroled.
Yeah.
I was going to say that too.
When all this is is basically telling the parole board, hey, have a meeting, you know, it's not even anything.
And I don't think parole boards are the woke.
Look at their file.
Like, that's what you're telling them to do look at their file.
I mean, I don't know if it's different places, but I don't think parole boards are the woke usually.
Well, here's the thing.
So, parole boards are often appointed by the governor.
So, they are politically motivated, right?
They're often aligned with the governor's vision.
And it varies significantly by state in terms of the kind of background you're expected to have.
You could be a random person and just nominated to serve on the parole board.
New York does have some expectations for what your background should be criminal justice, social work, things of that nature.
A certain number of years you have to have that experience.
But they don't require any training.
They don't require any ongoing training, any training when you're appointed to the board, nothing.
And again, as I said, that varies by state.
So you get this really like disjointed parole system when you look at the country.
I almost think we should have this be like the best of the best with honors.
Let's have like a national parole board and then let's keep track of their stats.
Yeah.
You know, if it was actually like, hey, this guy, he lets people out.
And they commit crimes, then okay, maybe your judgment isn't great as to who should be let out.
Because I'm sure it just changes every five seconds with the governor election or whatever.
It would be interesting if it was like, no, we'll just have a team of experts of some kind.
Yeah.
And you'll actually have metrics as to like how many of people did they.
Performance review.
Yeah.
How many people reoffended.
And then, and then I mean, it might also.
It's data you're capturing anyway.
Now you're just assigning it to the individuals that were part of the system.
It might honestly satisfy a bit of, I mean, there's so much bloodlust on this, but it might actually satisfy it a bit if people were like, at least there's hell to pay.
For somebody, like somebody could get fired or something.
Yeah.
If someone was released and they re offend, like that would at least, and it would, you know, at least be consequences of some kind.
I don't know.
That's just an idea.
No, that's not true.
If America wants to, if America's listening.
The other piece that is challenging with their medical parole that they've been doing is it can be really, really hard to find them appropriate housing and care because you're talking about people who, for that particular program, people who have.
Terminal illness.
And you can't just say, All right, good luck to you.
Open the door and let them walk out.
They're not walking out.
So, they are trying to connect those people to appropriate care, and that can be really, really challenging.
And, you know, I saw this a lot because when I transitioned from corrections, I went over to Department of State hospitals, and we had a really, really big population of civil commitments.
So, patients that were in the criminal justice system were offending within their counties, but the counties had no place to put them.
And so, they would send them to the state facilities, and we were only supposed to have them for a certain amount of time because.
The counties are supposed to find spots for those people to live and find solutions.
And it's really, really hard.
We had people that ended up staying with us for decades and they're away from their communities.
They're away from their support system, their families.
It's not good for the improvement of their outcomes, you know, to do stuff like that.
So I think about that a lot with things like medical parole.
And similarly with elder, this potential for elder parole too, how beneficial being connected to your community and your support system can be for those folks too.
I'm sure a lot of them don't.
Have any of that, like, anyway.
I mean, that's probably why they're in there to begin with.
A lot of times, potentially, potentially.
I guess I was thinking more of the you know, talking about the bill and the you know, the killers and all that.
You're talking about Son of Sam and John Lennon's assassin, yeah, yeah.
I get it, yeah.
We've been primed.
I mean, I don't know if the guy that uh attacked George Harrison is still alive or not.
I mean, whoever knifed George Harrison is probably that what just the support system of the guy who shot John Lennon is other people who attacked the Beatles.
Like, oh, I see, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a little club, it's their family, it's like, yeah.
So, then the other bill that's being considered as part of this is the Fair and Timely Parole Bill.
And this is basically reiterating from my reading, and I'll get into the specifics here, but from my reading, I think basically what it's saying is if someone is eligible for parole and is granted parole, they need to be released timely.
Oh, so that's just like, that should already be how it works.
Yeah.
So, the specific language in this says that the Board of Parole currently is required to consider the person's likelihood of committing future crimes upon release.
And to determine whether the person's release would, quote, deprecate the seriousness of the crime.
In practice, this provision results in the board rarely releasing individuals on their first appearance if the underlying crime was violent, even if it took place many years prior to the board appearance, and even when the person has a low risk of reoffending.
This practice of not releasing individuals who can, in fact, be released to the community with no risk to community safety also results, so basically saying they are eligible, they hit all these markers and stuff that you would expect for parole.
But because the nature of their crime, which could have been decades ago, was violent, that's an automatic no then.
It also results in a significant racial disparity.
Oh, yeah.
According to a November 2024 report by the Center on Race and Equality in the Law at New York University Law School, you know, Fox News is going to have a field day with that.
Pearl release data from the last three years show the widest gap in release rate racial disparities since the state began collecting this data in 2016.
According to their findings, there would have been thousands of additional grants of release of people of color.
If release rates for people of color matched those of white people.
Wow.
And so when you think about like the crime that is also committed, when there is racism baked in to the front end and the sentencing, the nature of the sentencing and the nature of the charges that you're faced with and the nature of conviction rates, it's baked in there.
It's baked in here too.
It's like you get penalized all along the way for your race.
And the New York legislature is trying to step in and say, like, hey, if you're eligible, For parole, if you've met all the markers for parole, you deserve to get out, even if there was like racism potentially, maybe not always, but potentially baked in from the beginning with your offense.
It says that the racial disparity was present even after controlling for variables such as prior offenses and seriousness of the underlying crime of conviction.
So we're talking about like serious violent murders, white person, black person, and that the release rate for white people, even when the charges are the same, the conviction is the same, white people are going to get released and not black people.
That's not right.
It's almost like the racism is systemic.
Yeah, exactly.
It talks about the political motivational factors of the parole board as part of the justification for this bill.
And cites an interesting statistic here.
Even if they are thoroughly rehabilitated with excellent prison records, 60% of incarcerated individuals are denied release by the parole board, and 90% of denials are due to the nature of the original crime.
So, this would not flip things on their head or anything, but basically say that there would be a presumption of release unless the board determines by a preponderance of evidence that an incarcerated individual is unlikely to live without violating the law and that their release poses an unreasonable public safety risk, which apparently they do.
60% of the time, anyway.
So, yeah, this is just kind of like the power of law behind them.
Also, note I think this is super interesting, and I stumbled on some really great resources here that I'll definitely include in the show notes so people can check it out.
There's a wonderful ACLU report called Trapped in Time The Silent Crisis of Elderly Incarceration that came out last year.
Really, really great.
There's a group called FWD.us, I'm guessing forward.
They just denied me parole stories and case studies.
And in that particular piece that just came out a couple months ago, They talked about the differences of how parole boards operate in three different states.
They focused on, I think, Mississippi, Missouri, and New York.
And in the New York one, one of the things that I thought was really shocking was that you don't have the right to a lawyer during your parole hearing.
Oh, wow.
In New York.
Huh.
You are alone.
Well, unless you can afford one, right?
Nope.
Oh, you don't get one.
You don't get representation.
Oh.
No representation.
Interesting.
From my research, that is what I am seeing.
And I'm sure if I'm wrong, folks will let me know.
But from my research, that is what I'm seeing.
And not just that, it's not even like you would expect, like an in person hearing, right?
You would expect the prisoner to come in and sit in front of the parole board.
Oftentimes, not necessarily in New York, but other states will just do a file review and then they'll get a letter, you know, saying you were denied parole for X, Y, and Z reasons.
In New York, they do video hearings, but an inmate that was interviewed for this piece said that at one of his parole hearings, they turn off their camera.
And so he's just sitting and staring at a screen.
Oh my God.
And he doesn't know what's happening.
He doesn't know what they're saying.
It's so dystopian, Jesus Christ.
It's dark and you're alone.
You have no one to lean on.
And you're trying to make a case that you've changed, that you're rehabilitated, that you're not a danger to society, that you have a support network potentially, or you have these things that are going to help make sure that the things that you've learned and you've improved upon while you're there are going to continue.
And you're just staring at a black box.
That's not human.
Yeah.
So just.
Some really, really terrible things that need to be fixed that unfortunately they're not even part of these bills.
I wish they were, but you know, you got to start somewhere, I guess.
So I thought we could hear from someone who has served on a parole board in New York.
This is through the Marshall Project.
In 1970, I visited my first jail after my high school teacher told us about people being held on bail simply because they couldn't afford to pay it.
I learned many inside were there for minor things, such as drug use.
I remember thinking.
I just met human beings just like me.
The visit gave me purpose.
I eventually became an assistant commissioner at New York's Rikers Island Jail and also created a drug crisis center.
I had always believed I could change things from the inside.
When my colleagues suggested me for the New York State Parole Board, I said yes.
I really didn't know what I was getting into.
We'd drive hours and hours to parole offices all over the state just to sit behind a table for 12 hours doing video interviews with incarcerated people.
Medical Care in Prisons00:13:52
Sometimes we could do 40 a day.
I started to call it conveyor belt justice because you'd be busy preparing to lead the next interview instead of watching and listening closely to the one taking place.
Then you might be writing an opinion during the next interview and there was a lot of paperwork, prisoners' risk analysis scores, programs they completed, letters from victims, judges, and prosecutors.
If the crime involved a police officer, the police union would gather hundreds of letters saying, do not release this person.
We had to physically sign each victim impact statement.
The files for the most heinous offenses, the one where the prisoner was denied parole umpteen times, were the worst.
There were hundreds of pages, so you ended up relying on a top sheet summing up the case.
The purpose of parole is not to focus on a static event.
That is the purpose of sentencing.
My colleagues also heavily considered the role of the victims in their decisions.
Our country needs a better system to address the harms that victims and their families face.
We need a process. to help them heal.
After a while, I realized I was dissenting more than agreeing with my colleagues.
It's really hard when you're always against everybody else.
Often I'd go into the bathroom to cry, upset because my colleagues didn't recognize that a person had transformed and deserved to go home.
I just couldn't make a difference in the way I thought I could.
I made it through two years of a five-year term.
When you look through a file and really listen to somebody, that's when you learn what they've done to try and improve themselves.
People are way more.
Than the worst thing they have ever done.
Yeah, but that guy killed John Lennon, though.
This idea, too, where, you know, like I read about the video interviews and stuff, and then you realize, like, yeah, but they're doing more than one in a day.
And her comment there that you end up preparing for your next interview during the one that you're sitting in or you're writing a report for one.
So all of these people, no one is actually being listened to.
It's just, it's heartbreaking to me because there are so many people where.
They're not son of Sam.
They're not John Lennon's assassin, right?
With the elder parole bill, too, there are people who, like, some of them might be grandparents that have never gotten to meet, like, their grandkids yet.
Like, I don't know.
It's just, it's all very heartbreaking to me.
And for it to be spun in a way that the New York Post and Fox News and News Nation are doing is so obvious and predictable and tragic.
Yeah.
I think one thing that annoys me a lot about this is in the same way that if you ever talk about taxes with a conservative, it's just, They need to be lower.
Yeah.
No matter what, like they haven't kept track of like where we are in the same way.
You can always just be like, criminals, but treat them worse.
Whatever it is, treat them worse.
No matter how far we've gotten, treat them worse.
Don't let them have this.
Don't let them have that.
Yeah.
Do a worse thing.
Don't give them this.
Don't give them that.
And like it just creates this like horrific system.
And any attempt to be like, okay, well, maybe like it's kind of a little too far.
Maybe like, you know, maybe you should actually like listen to their.
Parole hearings.
Yeah.
Any of that, they're like, fuck no.
How dare you?
Are you pro crime?
It's like there's never any incentive to say, like, hey, maybe it shouldn't be quite so bad because people are stupid and they're emotional and they're just reactionary to these things.
And they can always be convinced that something's going to be this horrible end of the world.
And you can always play on people's emotions to just not ever want to show any compassion to people like this.
It's just frustrating.
It's more frustrating too because, you know, we talked about the cost of their medical care as people age.
In a prison population and the increase in medical care that they need, how much that costs.
It's not just the cost, it's that there's evidence that the care that they're receiving in prison is abusive.
Yeah.
So the Marshall Project has a report that they did.
So I was going to say, before you get to that, I was going to say that it is a little, I think you would have to factor in that, like, if you're pro universal health care, that wouldn't be a change.
And, you know, like, you can't be like, well, it is kind of an oddity to be like, We ought to release these people so that we don't have to take care of them, kind of thing.
And if we're pro universal health care, which we are, then this would be a wash, unless it's more inefficient in prison or there's other things about the medical care that are different in some way, which I think is maybe what you're going to get to here.
Yeah, I guess where this is stemming from for me is that the New York prison system actually had pretty recently a significant investigation about the abuse that was happening.
In a number of their prisons, it was a number of them.
And the correctional officers that were participating in this abuse, the documents that were not accurate detailing the abuse that had occurred.
There was one that I saw where a correctional officer wrote a report after the fact said that he had hit the inmate once, but there's video evidence he just held a taser on him until he collapsed and continued to hold the taser on him.
You didn't write about that.
Yeah, you're a criminal if you do that.
There was a pervasive problem.
In the prisons, anyway.
And the correctional officer unions will come out and they'll say that it's because they're not allowed to do solitary confinement as much anymore.
And so it's really challenging to deal with some of the behavior that they're seeing because they can't just lock somebody up for 23 hours a day by themselves.
But it's not just like with the general population.
The Marshall Project looked into how the medical care is being served in a lot of the New York prisons.
And the medical rooms in a lot of these prisons don't have cameras.
I understand it from a privacy perspective for patients' medical care, but when we're talking about a prison, it feels very concerning to me.
And they talk about a particular case an inmate named Robert Brooks, who was carried into the infirmary face down, the guards holding him by his cuffed hands and ankles.
And when he was put in the private exam room in the medical care at Marcy Correctional Facility, this is Syracuse, New York, officers beat and choked him while nurses lingered in the hall.
He died the next day at a hospital.
So, his family sued, saying that they believe the guards intentionally took him to the infirmary because it lacked cameras.
But they know about this.
They know that this happened because some of the guards' body cameras were turned on.
So, they actually had body camera footage showing exactly what happened to their loved one.
It ended up leading to murder charges against six of the officers.
Yeah.
A few months later, officers beat another inmate to death in an attack that started in his cell, continued in the infirmary at Mid State Prison, just across the street from where that first inmate was killed.
They were not wearing body cameras for that.
Two officers have been charged with murder in that case.
The Marshall Project identified 46 allegations that corrections officers assaulted prisoners in medical wings of New York prisoners since 2010.
So, it's not like this extreme, you know, like deluge, I guess, of cases, but it's still wrong.
And that's just based off of the review of court settlements, disciplinary records, pending lawsuits.
So, there's probably a lot more that just didn't result in anything.
Three prisoners died.
Many were left with severe injuries.
One of them had a collapsed lung, broken bones.
In the past six years, three women inmates have alleged that male officers raped them in an infirmary.
In one New York prison, the beatings in the infirmary were felt to be so common across the prison population that the prisoners started calling the medical wing, quote, the torture chambers.
At another facility, they called the infirmary, quote, the slaughterhouse.
And just plenty more cases of situations in which the medical wing of these prisons is being utilized for some pretty dark, dark, dark purposes.
There's concerns that nurses don't get.
A lot of say to help protect prisoners' medical needs because security can override medical and health needs and stuff.
I guess that's understandable, but a lot of nurses have said that they just don't have the independence that they would have in other clinical environments when they're in a prison.
So that gets really, really challenging.
Now, beyond the nature of how the facility is structured completely, there is an article with the city and New York City website where they did some investigation about the doctors that are employed by.
New York Corrections and looked into their records.
What they found out was that just based on an initial review, they found 10 physicians since 2021, employed by the New York State Correction Department, had been sanctioned for really, really, really bad things.
Some really bad things.
One doctor accidentally chopped off part of a newborn's left index finger during a delivery and also attacked two nurses.
And they described him choking them because he was so angry.
He got employed by the New York State Department of Corrections to provide care in a prison environment.
Another doctor drained the wrong side of a patient's chest while attempting to remove a mass of fluid and altered a medical record to show that he operated on the correct side.
You shouldn't be allowed to keep doing other stuff.
No, exactly.
Why do they still have their medical license?
I love how they want no lenience for prisoners at all, but stuff like that apparently is like, well, okay, you get one free one.
Yeah, yeah.
It says that the sanctioned doctors comprise as much as 10% or more of the Department of Corrections full time core of physicians, a figure 20 times higher than the presence of such doctors in the state as a whole.
So, we're talking about the increased likelihood that someone will harm you who is supposed to be a doctor that we're going to just subject prisoners to because they are in prison.
So, why care about that?
It's probably just, yeah, you can't get anyone else or something.
It's probably a tough job to fill.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Prisoners, according to this article, often point to medical care as one of their biggest grievances.
Legal aid society, shout out Liz Skeen, has a staff of three whose sole job is to field medical complaints to look into what they can do about it.
When we are talking about a population that will disproportionately use these services and how not just lacking they are, how potentially dangerous they are when we're talking about the facility elements itself, but the potential for the care that they receive is going to be from doctors who shouldn't be doctors anymore.
Really blame people for being like, we gotta address this.
And again, it's up to the parole board's discretion, which is the way that it has always been.
We are just now adding another thing that they can look at.
So, I have quite a few things that I'll link in the show notes.
And when we talk about recidivism, I mentioned this a little bit earlier.
But again, just to reiterate California has had an elder parole program for several years.
And we started at age 50.
Now they have to have served 20 years of continuous incarceration of their sentence in order to be eligible for this.
Right.
You can't just like commit a crime at 49 and be like, hey, hey, hey.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
We had an elderly parole program prior to 2021 as well.
But the age limit was 60 at the time.
And there was 25 years of continuous incarceration.
So that's adjusted down, I think, because our prison population has been so egregiously overpopulated.
And looking at the data 2017 to 18, so back when it was age 60, served 25 years, 142 offenders were released from CDCR, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, through the Elderly Parole Program.
Of those offenders, one was convicted of a misdemeanor crime against persons during the three year follow up period for a three year conviction rate of less than 1%.
That's it.
That's it.
One person.
One person misdemeanor.
Wow.
That's it.
Even better than I would have thought.
Yeah.
They're not really dangerous anymore.
Right, exactly.
Or if they are and they have not rehabilitated, they're going to stay.
Yeah.
So what are we talking about here?
Unfortunately, there's been a lot of talk about changing the elderly parole program in California because now it's touching on sex offenders.
Because of that one guy's parking ticket?
No.
No, it's because of sex offenders because now it reaches into.
Offenses that are really like are visceral for people.
And so they don't want people getting out.
Like, murder isn't?
Yeah, no.
They treat sex offenders worse than they do murderers.
They do.
I mean, I guess I could see if it's anything with like children, but I mean, murdering someone's about as bad as it gets, but okay.
Yeah.
So, like I said, I'll share a lot of links and stuff, some great stuff to read there.
But this is all being blown up for, let me end with this.
These two bills are in committee.
Like, they are spending so many pixels and so much like resources to try and get people riled up about the son of Sam Killer and John Lennon's assassin for bills that the New York legislature, the Democrats anyway, have been trying to pass for years.
Oh, so this isn't happening.
It's not even going to happen, probably.
I didn't want to leave with that.
We're sorry we wasted your time.
Blowing Up the Bills00:02:16
No, but it is a sign.
I had this thought New York Post, we constantly see what it does and see how stupid it is and how wrong it is.
Yeah.
Why is that just allowed to happen?
I don't understand.
Like, I just had a second where I'm like, I don't get it.
There's like certain publications that's like, oh, yeah, that's the one that's literally always lying and inflaming people's emotions in the worst ways that's bad for us.
But, you know, what can you do?
Yeah.
I don't, how is that reality?
I don't know what could be done.
I guess nothing apparently, but like, why is that our reality?
Can't we just not?
But then they wouldn't be in business, they wouldn't be making that sweet, sweet money.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's they get bought up by rich people in order to inflame the emotions of everybody so that they can do what they want while no one's looking.
It's just so obvious.
I don't know why people can't realize that that's what's obviously fucking going on.
But he killed John Lennon.
I don't know.
On the other hand, all right.
Well, thanks, Wokus.
And darn, sounds like these bills might not pass, but don't worry.
We'll free all the criminals somehow.
I'm determined.
We'll find another way.
Yeah, it's in our charter.
It's just, I want, I'm soft.
On crime.
Soft on crime.
That's what we chant at our rallies and stuff.
Yep.
Just that's how we do it here and where there's woke.
All right.
Thanks, Wokies.
Thanks, Lydia, for dying for our sins.
Yeah.
Hopefully, I'm granted parole after this.
Well, you'll be dead.
There's no reason to.
Yeah, it's true.
Not going to be very timely, probably.
Get well soon.
And thanks, listeners.
Everybody, thanks for listening and sharing.
And we'll see you next week.
You should have committed crime if you wanted my sympathy.