Establishes visiting policies for incarcerated people, to provide incarcerated people opportunities for personal contact with relatives, friends, clergy, volunteers and other persons to promote better institutional adjustment and better community adjustment upon release.
STATE OF NEW YORK
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5037--A
Cal. No. 847
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
February 18, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sens. SEPULVEDA, BAILEY, BASKIN, BRISPORT, BROUK, CLEARE,
COONEY, GIANARIS, GOUNARDES, HARCKHAM, JACKSON, KAVANAGH, MYRIE,
RAMOS, RIVERA, SALAZAR, SANDERS -- read twice and ordered printed, and
when printed to be committed to the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime
and Correction -- recommitted to the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime
and Correction in accordance with Senate Rule 6, sec. 8 -- reported
favorably from said committee and committed to the Committee on
Finance -- reported favorably from said committee, ordered to first
and second report, ordered to a third reading, amended and ordered
reprinted, retaining its place in the order of third reading
AN ACT to amend the correction law, in relation to the establishment of
visiting policies for incarcerated individuals
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 138-c
2 to read as follows:
3 § 138-c. Visiting policies for the incarcerated. 1. State and local
4 correctional facilities shall establish visiting policies which give
5 incarcerated individuals opportunities for in-person contact with their
6 relatives, children, friends, clergy, volunteers and other persons to
7 promote individual transformation, better institutional adjustment and
8 better community adjustment upon release. Such program shall include,
9 but not be limited to, (a) visiting hours that are reasonably likely to
10 accommodate persons traveling from within the state, including evening
11 hours starting at six o'clock p.m. and/or weekend hours, (b) visits of
12 sufficient duration, including a minimum of one hour at local correc-
13 tional facilities so that visitors and incarcerated individuals will be
14 able to maintain relationship bonds, and (c) a published overcrowding
15 policy that is equitable with due consideration to the distance traveled
16 by the visitor, the frequency of the visitor's visits, the most recent
17 occasion that the incarcerated individual's visit was terminated due to
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07456-03-6
S. 5037--A 2
1 overcrowding, and any other individual circumstances that limit in-per-
2 son visits between the incarcerated individuals and the visitor.
3 2. Video conferencing may supplement, but shall not take the place of,
4 in-person visits. For the purposes of this section, video conferencing
5 or other technologies that enable remote visitation shall not count
6 toward the required number of visits or duration of visitation that any
7 facility must offer to incarcerated individuals by law or regulation.
8 3. No incarcerated individual is to be visited against such incarcer-
9 ated individual's will by any person.
10 § 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after
11 it shall have become a law.
