STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
6481
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
March 14, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. CLEARE -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and
Correction
AN ACT to amend the correction law, in relation to commencing a study on
the relationship between the corrections system and the child welfare
system
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The correction law is amended by adding a new section 30 to
2 read as follows:
3 § 30. Incarcerated individual study. 1. The commissioner shall conduct
4 a comprehensive study on incarcerated individuals' prior involvement
5 with child welfare and juvenile systems, including but not limited to:
6 (a) previous placement in out-of-home care, specifying type of place-
7 ment: foster care, kinship foster care, secure detention facilities,
8 non-secure detention facilities, group homes or other authorized agen-
9 cies or facilities operated or licensed by the office of children and
10 family services;
11 (b) the approximate length of such period of placement;
12 (c) the age of the incarcerated individual during such period of
13 placement;
14 (d) the ethnic background of the incarcerated individual; and
15 (e) the incarcerated individual's gender.
16 2. As part of the study the commissioner shall conduct surveys on
17 current incarcerated individuals in state, county, and municipal correc-
18 tional facilities. The survey shall be based on a random sample or
19 other scientifically appropriate sample of not less than ten percent of
20 all state, county, and municipal correctional facilities.
21 3. The commissioner shall ensure the confidentiality of each survey
22 participant by using self-administered questionnaires and other similar
23 survey methods, which will ensure the respondent's anonymity.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD09022-01-5
S. 6481 2
1 4. An incarcerated individual shall be deemed to have given their
2 informed consent only if such incarcerated individual is informed in
3 writing of the potential risks and benefits of the study.
4 5. The commissioner shall make a written report on the relationship
5 between the corrections system and the child welfare system to the
6 governor, temporary president of the senate and speaker of the assembly
7 of its findings, conclusions and recommendations on or before June thir-
8 tieth of the year next succeeding the year in which this subdivision
9 shall take effect.
10 § 2. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall
11 have become a law.
