Albany — Once incarcerated in Albion Correctional Facility, since finishing her time served in 2005, Roni Minter has started several organizations in the effort of promoting change in the criminal justice system and supporting other incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women. She is calling for change after the killing of Robert Brooks in Marcy Correctional Facility.
“I have to be honest and say that I did not watch the video. I cannot watch the video. I have too many things in my head already from witnessing and seeing violence in the correctional settings, that culture. Corrections is a violent culture, and so that’s just the reality of how incarcerated men and women live under the fear of being raped, beaten or murdered while incarcerated,” Minter says. “To be quite honest, I’ve seen numerous women get beaten brutally, and for the grace of God, they weren’t killed. And so that’s just commonplace in corrections.”
Minter says in order to promote change, corrections as a whole needs to be reimagined. She is pushing for Attorney General reviews of correctional facilities to be conducted unannounced, which she says will provide a more accurate picture of the conditions.
“What I would say to Attorney General Tish James, is please investigate those prisons,” she says. “I would urge the legislators to pass the sexual assault bill that Senator Salazar has gotten passed in the Senate twice now, it just hasn’t passed in the Assembly, and get that bill going. Because that will take the ownership of DOCCS from investigating themselves, and have an outside entity investigate DOCCS. I would encourage that the Inspector General’s Office get involved.”
Senator Julia Salazar’s (D) bill would authorize the State Inspector General to receive and investigate complaints of sexual assault in correctional facilities.
Watch the full conversation with Minter here:
