New York lawmakers on Tuesday joined former prisoners and families of incarcerated people in Albany to urge elected officials and Gov. Kathy Hochul to enact bills that would reshape state sentencing laws that critics say are both too harsh and ineffective in deterring crime.

At a rallying held inside the New York State Capitol, about a dozen state assemblymembers and senators spoke alongside reform advocates in a push to pass three laws that would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, allow certain prisoners to apply for a sentence reduction, and earn more "good time" credit to be discounted from their sentences.

Center for Community Alternatives, an advocacy group supporting the bills, said in a statement that about 500 people attended the rally, where people hurled slogans such as "Communities, Not Cages," which is also the name of a broader grassroots campaign seeking to rewrite New York's sentencing laws.

"It's no secret that the way we've approached sentencing and incarceration in New York is not working, with Black and brown communities impacted at a disproportionate rate. New York's recidivism is one of the worst in the country," said Sen. Jeremy Cooney, a Democrat representing Rochester, New York, and lead sponsor of one of the bills.

Formerly incarcerated people took the microphone to share stories of their incarceration, saying that existing laws have done little to allow them to rehabilitate them while in prison.

One of them was Leon Davis, who left prison nine months ago after serving 25 years in prison for killing a person in a fight. At age 18, he faced life imprisonment. He eventually became a mentor to other prisoners.

"All I heard was I was gonna die in it," Davis told the crowd. "I was a child who hadn't mentally matured yet, and I was put into the shark's den."

Advocates say the legislation enjoys broad support from judges, prison administrators, the American Bar Association and labor unions, as well as a constellation of prison reform advocacy groups active in the state.

The proposals gained some momentum in recent years, but failed to get enough in New York's two legislative chambers to pass. More recently, however, they earned the support of the state judiciary.

Currently, there is no formal process for people incarcerated in New York to ask courts to reconsider their sentences. In some instances, people incarcerated decades ago continue to serve sentences that are longer than the ones imposed under today's laws for the same offenses. The Second Look Act would establish such a process, allowing judges to review and reconsider excessive sentences.

The Earned Time Act, meanwhile, would increase the ability of incarcerated people to earn time off their sentences. Notably, they would be able to earn "good time" and "merit time" to cover up to one-half of the maximum sentence imposed on them.

And the Marvin Mayfield Act, named after a formerly incarcerated Brooklyn man who later advocated for prison reform and died in 2023, would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences to give judges latitude in considering individual factors and mitigating circumstances when imposing a sentence.

"Our criminal justice system has prioritized punishment over rehabilitation, tearing families apart and disproportionately harming Black and brown communities," said Assemblymember Demond Meeks, a Democrat who is the lead sponsor of the Marvin Mayfield Act.

Melani Bishop, the mother of a man who took a plea deal in exchange for an 11-year prison sentence and avoiding a 40-year mandatory minimum, said New York laws have been used by prosecutors to coerce defendants to plead guilty, a phenomenon also known as the trial penalty. Bishop said her son asked for mental health care while on suicide watch.

But instead of getting help, he was brutally beaten by six corrections officers, she said, adding that the more time people spend incarcerated, the more "their lives are at risk. "

"Our sentencing laws are failing us. They're failing families like mine, and they're failing our communities," she said. "This is why we need the Marvin Mayfield Act to end mandatory minimums."

A growing number of states have enacted second look legislation. So far, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Oregon and the District of Columbia have embraced the process. Twenty-two other states have proposed similar measures.

At the federal level, a proposed second look bill was introduced by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, but has so far failed to gain steam.

Last month, New York Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas said he supports the second look bill in the Empire State, which currently has 27 sponsors in the state Senate and 49 in the Assembly, all of them Democrats.

The New York State Justice Task Force, which aims at promoting equality in the criminal justice system, came in favor of second look legislation in a report it issued in January 2024. Reviewing sentences is necessary to remedy the effects of tough-on-crime sentencing laws that led to a disproportionally higher number of defendants of color to serve long prison sentences, the task force concluded.

In August 2022, the American Bar Association issued a resolution urging federal, state and governments to adopt a second look process to review the sentences of incarcerated people who have served at least 10 continuous years behind bars.

Center for Community Alternatives said in its statement that New Yorkers support all three of the proposed bills. A statewide poll of about 500 voters conducted in October by EMC Research found that 68% of respondents supported the Second Look Act and 74% of them supported the Earned Time Act.

The latter also enjoys the support of former prison administrators, including Vanda Seward, a former director of statewide reentry services for the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, who called the Earned Time Act a "win-win" in an October 2023 editorial published by the Times Union saying it would support the reentry of formerly incarcerated people into society while lowering recidivism rates and costs to taxpayers.

More recently, Brian Fischer, a former commissioner of the state Corrections Department, said he supported both the Second Look Act and the Earned Time Act.

"Support for these reforms is broad and is undeniable," Thomas Gant, a community organizer for Center for Community Alternatives, said at the rally Tuesday. He was 22 years old in 1999 when he was sentenced 25 years to life.

"New Yorkers are now saying yes to 'communities, not cages' and no more to outdated and inhumane laws that warehouse our loved ones without opportunity for change," Gant said. "True safety means supported transformation, second chances, not endless punishment."

--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.