All judges in the state’s criminal and family courts responsible for sentencing people will be required to visit at least one jail, prison or detention facility a year, per new rules the state’s court system announced Monday.
The goal, the state’s Office of Court Administration said, is for judges to come face to face with the impact their sentencing has and provide them with greater insight into prison conditions. It has broad support from the state’s judges, legal professors, and attorneys, including Court of Appeals Chief Judge Rowan Wilson, who says the initiative will keep judges connected to what happens to people after they sentence them.
“The revised rule embodies the principle that judges are not distant arbiters but engaged stewards of justice, whose thoughtful determinations are grounded in reality,” Wilson said. “Justice may be depicted as blind, but should not blind itself to reality.”
New York is now the first state in the nation to mandate annual visits by all trial court judges who make sentencing or detention decisions. The visits will include opportunities for “meaningful time” in all areas across the prison, including intake, housing, work education, recreation, visitation, dining, and medical and mental health facilities, the court system said.
Judges will also have an opportunity to meet with incarcerated individuals, employees, administrators, and service providers.
“This will deepen a judge’s firsthand understanding of prison conditions and the broad impact of incarceration on individuals, families, and communities, as well as the opportunities available during incarceration,” Wilson said. “By doing so, it promotes confidence in the judiciary, not merely in those who are incarcerated or their families, but also in the public at large.”
The Legal Aid Society called the new rule “an important change” that will strengthen accountability, transparency and public trust in the city’s courts.
“Requiring judges to make annual visits to facilities where adults and youth are incarcerated – facilities that are so often shrouded in secrecy – will provide judges with critical information and perspective for those entrusted with making decisions that have profound impacts on New Yorkers’ futures,” said Tina Luongo and Dawne Mitchell, chief attorneys of Legal Aid’s criminal defenes and juvenile rights practices. “This understanding will provide judges with a more complete picture of the effects of their decisions to subject individuals to incarceration, hopefully moving our system toward greater justice.”
Studies have shown that engaging with incarcerated people increases empathy and improves the criminal justice system. The court system said it conducted its own years of in-depth study through its Advisory Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure, led by Committee Chair Judge Daniel Conviser and Committee member Michael Mushlin, a Pace Law School professor, to determine the need for the new rule.
“Regular, structured prison visits are vital in equipping judges with greater insight into the day- to-day reality of being incarcerated,” Conviser said. “The evolved approach mandated by this new rule will serve to foster empathy, increase visibility, and support reform and improvement of the overall criminal justice system.”
The new requirement is set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2028.
The court system says it will spend the next 18 months establishing an advisory task force that will bring together trial court judges, judicial associations, court administrators, correctional and detention facility representatives and incarceration rights experts to create a new judicial education program and iron out logistics.