New York has moved to change how deaths in prisons and jails are investigated with a new law prompted by the killings of two men at the hands of prison guards, even as many government reports on custodial deaths raise different questions about care and oversight at correctional facilities.

Robert Brooks was 43 and Messiah Nantwi was 22 when they were beaten to death. Ten corrections officers were charged in each case, some of whom have since been sent to prison, while others are awaiting trial.

Brooks was killed in December 2024 at Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, where three prisoners died in custody from September 2024 to September 2025, according to the Correctional Association of New York, an organization designated by law to monitor state prisons. Four have died in that same period at nearby Mid-State Correctional Facility, where Nantwi was killed last March.

Information on the causes of those deaths is not included in the data, but outcry over Brooks and Nantwi's fatal beatings helped create the momentum needed to pass a bill, A8871/S8415, which expands oversight and disclosure requirements for deaths in custody.

"We're making some progress in terms of oversight and accountability, but there is so much more that needs to be done," Prisoners' Legal Services of New York executive director Karen L. Murtagh told Law360.

A study by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which runs state prisons, of the deaths of individuals under its custody in 2023 reported one homicide, 68 natural deaths, eight overdoses, 11 suicides and 19 unknown causes of death.

However, some advocates and lawmakers have warned that public data may be obscuring violence perpetrated by corrections staff. A January report by state Sen. Julia Salazar, the chair of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, raised concerns that prisons were not being transparent about violence at the hands of their staffs.

"In many instances, even when an individual dies at the hands of correction officers, the cause of death is marked as some sort of natural cause, making it extremely difficult to accurately categorize deaths," the report read.

"For example, Clement Lowe was incarcerated at Green Haven in 2023," the report continued. "He was beaten by multiple officers from the Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT), from which he sustained substantial injuries. He was then transferred to Upstate Correctional Facility, where he was denied medical treatment, despite the pleadings of his family, and later died. Although his death was marked as natural causes, it was clear that it would not have happened if he was not brutalized."

The New York Legal Aid Society has made it clear that it is not impressed with A8871/S8415, calling it "watered down" in a statement last December, and pushing to reduce the incarcerated population.

"As we stated when the Legislature passed this package earlier this year, Albany failed to meet the moment by refusing to enact the decarceration measures necessary to meaningfully reduce the prison population — including fair and timely parole, elder parole, the Earned Time Act and the Second Look Act," the organization said. "In the wake of the brutal killings of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, and amid the ongoing suffering endured by so many incarcerated New Yorkers forced to survive in dangerous and degrading conditions, that failure is both glaring and inexcusable."

The Legal Aid Society did not immediately respond to Law360's request for further comment.

Murtagh called the bill "a huge step forward," but isn't confident that it will address what she calls the "day-to-day abuses that happen in the prisons."

"They happen minute by minute in the prisons, and it's almost impossible to remedy that situation because of all of the other issues at play, [including] the blatant racism that exists," she said.

"Hopefully, this [legislative] session, more will be done to get at the crux of the issue, which is you have to hold people in [the department of corrections] accountable if they are going to brutalize someone, and the way to do that is to do things like take away qualified immunity and change the prison disciplinary system, change the grievance system — the day-to-day functioning of the prisons has to be addressed if we're really going to get to the bottom of this."

Sumeet Sharma, director of the Correctional Association of New York, told Law360 that there has been "a pretty significant rise in the number of people dying in state prisons in the last two years."

"2024 actually had more deaths, and has had the most that's in state prisons in the last five years, and that includes the COVID years," he added.

Despite this, the mortality rate for New York was "about the same as or lower than other large states," according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision study. Law360's analysis of CANY's data on deaths in DOCCS facilities over the 12-month period up to September 2025 found that while larger facilities generally report a higher number of deaths, rates vary widely and do not closely track population size.

Coxsackie had the highest mortality rate with 23 deaths. The facility is home to one of the department's regional medical units, which houses prisoners with advanced medical needs.

The data does not include causes of death, but partially redacted reports on the deaths of 13 incarcerated people in 2024 from the state Commission of Correction's medical review board identified five deaths as suicides, four as non-drug-related medical incidents, three as drug-related and one as undetermined. All but two of them took place in county jails.

The medical board identified concerns with the circumstances surrounding several of the deaths. It said there were "deficiencies and a lack of a comprehensive management plan" for the mental health of two of the people who died by suicide, and communication issues about the supervision status of another.

A different report said that the death of 45-year-old David Radcliffe from methamphetamine intoxication at the Tompkins County Jail in June 2024 may have been prevented if he had promptly been sent to a hospital. A report on the death of 25-year-old Antwan Cater from a seizure caused by the effects of a synthetic cannabinoid raised similar concerns, stating there was a gap of more than four minutes between medical staff finding Cater unresponsive, another more than four-minute delay to request emergency medical services and a more than six-minute delay to administer Narcan.

"Something we see on the state level is that while there is data reporting when a death does occur, there is really a lack of information," CANY's Sharma said. "And you know sooner rather than later about the causes and circumstances of those deaths."

The legislation requires state and local correctional facilities to disclose video footage related to deaths in custody to the Office of the Attorney General within 72 hours. All corrections department facilities and transport vehicles must have complete audio and visual coverage, except for the insides of cells and bathrooms.

As well as this, the bill opens pathways to civil litigation as well by giving incarcerated people a window after their release to file claims for harm incurred during their time in custody. It also requires photographs and X-rays to be included in autopsy reports, the designation of a deputy attorney general when the Office of the Attorney General has a conflict of interest and the issuance of quarterly report data.

The number of state Commission of Correction commissioners also increases from three to five under the legislation, with a mandate that at least one be a formerly incarcerated person.

The commission's membership "has been driven by people with a law enforcement background — not to say that that's not a valuable perspective, but having a diversity of perspectives on this commission will allow them to oversee and investigate certain incidents in state prisons, jails and other detention facilities," Sharma said.

The Correctional Association of New York will be able to expand its reach thanks to this legislation, which increases its access to corrections department facilities and data and provides incarcerated individuals with more avenues to access the association privately, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul's office. Sharma says that his organization will now receive data on the population under custody, staffing and deaths in custody on a quarterly basis.

"Just having data transparency and being able to triangulate and identify what the problems are in real time is something that was lacking for the Correctional Association of New York and overall for the state," he added.

In the meantime, New York's state budget allows Hochul to close up to three correctional facilities. The corrections department announced last November that it would close Bare Hill Correctional Facility in March. All the nearly 300 staff members at the Franklin County prison will be offered jobs at other facilities, and prisoners will be transferred to neighboring facilities. The announcement noted that there are more than 650 vacant staff positions available at correctional facilities in Franklin, Clinton and Essex counties.

When A8871/S8415 was signed in December, Hochul said in a statement: "In the year since the murder of Robert Brooks, we have implemented a number of new policies and initiatives to begin the process of reforming our corrections system: expediting the installation and use of fixed and body-worn cameras, making it law that body-worn cameras must be worn and turned on, and investing more money in the Office of Special Investigations.

"I have been clear that there is more to do," Hochul said, "and I am grateful to the Legislature and the family of Robert Brooks for advocating for these reforms and working together to ensure that we could sign this important legislation to advance these reforms together. Our work is never done, and I will not stop working to ensure our correctional facilities are safe for all."

--Editing by Robert Rudinger.