CCA Demands Action on Mounting NYS Prison Deaths
NEW YORK — 83 people have died in state prisons during the first half of 2026, according to data published by the New York State Department of Corrections and Com munity Supervision (DOCCS). These fatalities have occurred across the system, with the highest numbers concentrated at Mohawk, Green Haven, and Wende correctional facilities. The mounting toll includes the recently reported death of Craig Lynch, who died on June 28 at Coxsackie. In response, Thomas Gant, organizer at the Center for Community Alternatives (CCA), issued the following statement:
“The deaths of 83 people in New York State prisons in just the first six months of 2026 are an urgent indictment of a prison system in crisis. Behind every number is a person whose life had value, a family grieving, and a community left to carry an immeasurable loss.
Governor Hochul and state lawmakers cannot continue to look away while people die behind prison walls at this staggering pace. New York must act now to end violence, medical neglect, and inhumane conditions in its prisons, and create meaningful pathways home for people serving excessive sentences. The Legislature must pass the Second Look Act and Earned Time Act, and the Governor must take immediate action to protect the lives and dignity of every person in DOCCS custody. No family should have to fear that a loved one will not come home alive.”
BACKGROUND:
83 people died over 181 days, averaging one death every 48 hours across the state prison system. (The complete log of 2026 fatalities in New York State prisons can be reviewed directly on the DOCCS Incarcerated Deaths tracker.)
Nearly half of the deceased (40 of 83) were 57 or older, highlighting the lethal impact of extreme sentences. Twelve individuals were in their late 70s and 80s, with the oldest being 88 years old.
Over 40% of all deaths occurred at just four facilities. Mohawk reported 11 deaths, followed by Green Haven (9), Wende (8), and Elmira (7).
Lawmakers and advocates are calling for the passage of the Second Look Act, Earned Time Act, and Marvin Mayfield Act.
Robert Ricks, the father of Robert Brooks, who was bru tally murdered by a swarm of prison guards at Marcy Correctional Facility in December 2024, wrote in an op-ed: “New York’s criminal legal system is doing exactly what it was designed to do: warehouse Black and brown people, protect those who brutalize them, and uphold a culture of perpetual punishment. That’s why I support the Communities Not Cages campaign to win pas sage of the Second Look Act, Earned Time Act, and Marvin Mayfield Act. The Earned Time Act helps prepare people to come home and reintegrate with their families. My son did everything he could inside. He got his GED, studied sign language, horticulture and maintenance, and made amends. He told me, ‘I wanna do what you do, Dad’—mentor young people, change lives. But instead of a second chance to come home and do just that, he got a death sentence. The Second Look Act gives judges the ability to reevaluate long sentences for people who’ve changed. Transformation doesn’t take a lifetime. I was once incarcer ated for 18 months, and I never looked back. Prisons shouldn’t be warehouses. They shouldn’t be graveyards. But that’s what we’ve turned them into. And my son is proof.”
These urgent and common sense reforms have extensive support from: judges, including the Chief Judge and Chief Administrative Judge of New York State, law enforcement, including the former prison commissioner of the Department of Corrections and Com munity Supervision (DOCCS) and the former New York City commissioner of corrections and probation, the American Bar Association, dozens of labor unions, victim services and survivor justice groups, and over 250 organizations. The bills also have majority support in the state legislature.
These bills are broadly pop ular with New Yorkers. Polling by EMC Research found that 74% of New Yorkers support the Earned Time Act and 68% of New Yorkers support the Second Look Act.
New York’s sentencing laws are outdated and archaic, passed during the 1970s Rock efeller Drug Law era and the years following the 1994 Crime Bill, and they have dispro portionately impacted Black and brown communities. Right now, over 30,000 people are incarcerated in New York’s prisons. Nearly 75% are Black or brown.
The Second Look Act would 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 unjust sentences.
The Earned Time Act would strengthen and expand “good time” and “merit time” programs to encourage incar cerated people to participate in rehabilitative programming. National research shows that earned time opportunities help to prepare incarcerated people for reintegration, reducing recidivism rates and correctional costs. DOCCS data shows that participation in merit time programs reduced recidivism by 8%.
The Marvin Mayfield Act would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, allowing judges to consider the indi vidual factors and mitigating circumstances in a case and addressing the outsize power of prosecutors to coerce plea deals. New York’s sentenc ing laws have eviscerated the constitutional right to trial. Right now, 98% of convictions in New York are the result of guilty pleas, not trials, in part because prosecutors use the threat of lengthy mandatory minimums to extract pleas, undermining fairness and basic constitutional rights.
Instead of excessive sentences, survivors of crime over whelmingly prefer investments in the community, by a factor of 15 to 1.
Mass incarceration is inef fective - and costly. It costs nearly $70,000 per year to incarcerate a person in state prison with an annual prison system price tag of $3 billion. These are billions of dollars New York State could spend on education, housing, health care, community-based anti violence and restorative justice programs.