Hunger Strike: Brooklyn Elected Will Fast For Bail Reform

CROWN HEIGHTS, NY — A Brooklyn assembly member took drastic measures this weekend as bail reform dominates New York State budget discussions.

Assemblymember Latrice Walker, who represents part of Crown Heights and Brownsville, launched a hunger strike Sunday to protest "Gov. [Kathy] Hochul's efforts to gut bail reform," she said.

This is Walker's second hunger strike inspired by bail reform "rollbacks" in the state budget. Her strike last year lasted 19 days — until the budget passed.

Hochul this year proposed to roll back a 2019 bail reform that requires judges to impose the "least restrictive" means possible to get a defendant back in court, according to Gothamist.

The "least restrictive" measure reigns in a judge's ability to weaponize bail against Black and Brown New Yorkers, Walker said. This year's strike was inspired by a trip to Rikers Island, where she met detainees awaiting trial, Walker said.

Since 2021, 36 people have died on Rikers Island awaiting their court date, something that undermines a defendant's right to be considered "innocent until proven guilty," Walker told Spectrum 1.

"Most people return to court on their first or second time that they have to return to court. It's usually their sixth time once the sick days are no longer available, the vacation days are no longer available — when it becomes almost impossible for a person to return to court. Which are not bail issues," Walker said. "We know the games that get played during this time and this process, forcing people [to] take pleas they are not guilty of."

"Locking up more people pretrial does no make us safer," Walker said in a statement.

Hochul claimed the move will protect public safety and fairness, taking away some of a judge's discretion and asking them to look at prior arrests and violations of orders of protection, amNY reported.

"What Gov. Hochul is proposing goes beyond rollbacks. She wants a wholesale dismantling of bail reform without a legal or empirical basis," Walker said in a statement."I have to do what I have to do to keep New York State from filling jails with Black and brown people."