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Photo from Assemblyman D. Billy Jones's facebook page

Jun 12, 2020 In the wake of sweeping police reforms passed by the state legislature this week, were checking in with our North Country lawmakers on how they voted. Assemblyman D. Billy Jones is a Democrat from Chateaugay who represents Clinton and Franklin Counties, and parts of St. Lawrence County. Hes also a former corrections officer.

Assemblyman Jones has been getting a life-long education in how our society thinks about crime and punishment.

"Im open minded and I am willing to listen to anyone at any given time, and certainly Ive learned a lot and have educated myself a lot on these issues."

He spent twenty years working inside New York state prisons, where a disproportionate amount of people incarcerated are black. And since getting elected to the Assembly, he says hes learned a lot from his colleagues about the communities many of those incarcerated people came from, and their relationships with police.

"And we do have to cure or try to cure the ills of our society. Racism, bigotry has no place in our society. And we must do things to stop that. And certainly the relationships in black and brown communities with our law enforcement need to be improved as well."

Jones says these reforms could be a big step toward healing those relationships: mandating the use of body cameras on officers, setting up a special prosecutor to investigate police misconduct, or banning chokeholds, and was proud to vote in favor of them.

But it was the reform thats getting the most attention right now, the repeal of 50-a the law which since the 1970s police have used to seal disciplinary records from the public that Jones couldnt get behind. He broke with most of his Democratic colleagues to vote against it, because he says the language of the bill doesnt adequately protect to officers from unsubstantiated claims.

"And I think theres gonna be some fallout from this. I think its going to lead to a lot of issues, not only for our law enforcement but for our community members, and I just wish we wouldve cleaned that up."

The bill does let a department redact parts of the record like personal information, or minor infractions, before releasing it. But Jones says thats not strong enough protection for the former colleagues of his who he says this law could alienate.

"I think a lot of them feel its us against the world mentality, and I know thats not good for communities either."

Back in his North Country office yesterday, Jones said he thinks theres still a lot more work to do, and that this recent package of bills has kept him hopeful.

"You need to be in this line of work and especially now. Because if you dont have hope, I would probably get done, the day that I dont believe we cant improve our society, that would probably be my last day on the job, so, I guess youll know when I lose a little bit of hope."

Governor Cuomo could sign the reforms into law any day now.

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Assemblyman Jones, Democrat and former corrections officer, thinks through NY police reform - North Country Public Radio