By Reuven Blau, THE CITY | Photo Courtesy THE CITY

After a damning revelation eight years ago, state leaders changed the make-up of the Parole Board to combat inequality. It didn’t help.

Black and Hispanic people in New York state prisons have a much higher chance to be denied parole than whites over the past three years — a divide that’s gotten worse since being highlighted in 2016, a new study shows.

New York’s Parole Board released 34.79% of people of color while letting out 48.71% of white people from January through June 2024, based on a report by New York University School of Law’s Center for Race, Inequality & the Law posted online Monday.

Since Gov. Kathy Hochul took office in 2021, there would be 1,338 fewer Blacks and Hispanics behind bars if they were paroled at the same rate as whites, the report shows.

“The sad reality, as this report shows, is that New York’s Parole Board is going backwards,” said the report’s co-author, Jason Williamson, executive director of NYU Law’s Center.

New York Times brought the racial disparity to light in 2016 when it reported “that fewer than one in six Black or Hispanic men was released at his first hearing, compared with one in four white men.”

As a result, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that he would nominate several minority candidates to the parole board. At the time, the board’s 13 members only included one Black man and no latinos.

Currently, the 16-member board is composed of six Blacks, three Hispanics, one Asian, one Egyptian, and five whites.

But the racial inequality problem has only gotten worse, the data shows.

From 2016 to 2021, 33.45% of people of color appearing before the Parole Board were approved for release, according to the report. By contrast, 40.39% of white people were let out by the board over that same period, the report said.

Additionally, from 2022 to 2024, the Parole Board was 32.28% less likely to release a person of color than a white person.

“This level of racial disparity in the last three years is 71.65% worse than the already existing racial disparities of the previous six years,” the report said.

Asked about the report, the state prison system’s chief spokesperson, Thomas Mailey, detailed how parole commissioners are appointed by the governor and the standards they rely upon to base their decisions. He also noted the board is the most diverse it has ever been.

But Mailey refused to specifically discuss the NYU Law’s Center’s racial bias findings.

‘I Changed But the Crime Can Never Change’

The report’s calculations include first parole hearings after incarcerated people initially become eligible upon the completion of their minimum sentences. The data also includes subsequent parole appearances typically scheduled every two years.

One Black parolee, who served just over 26 years for a kidnapping and manslaughter case where an abusive spouse was the victim, said she believes she would have been released sooner if she was white.

“The commissioner reviewing my case was white,” said Deb, who asked that her last name be withheld. “I’m Black. I’ve seen the data in this report and I have the lived experience and I have no doubt racial bias played a role in my denials.”

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