Measures that would make it easier for people serving long prison sentences to be eligible for parole are once again being sought in Albany, and criminal justice advocates are once again gearing up for a renewed push on the issue.

If approved by the Democratic-led Legislature, the parole law changes would be the latest in a line of changes to the criminal justice system in the state.

“The hurt and pain of losing a sibling who’s your first best friend is unimaginable, especially when I was the one that found her," said Shneaqua Purvis, the executive director of the advocacy group Both Sides of the Violence. "You never want another family or community to experience that. So currently, in my healing, I mentor the person who took her life in his progress, since he had done the work to take accountability and change, and I help him develop his boxing program. Justice to me means that he uses what he learned and goes on to help prevent other acts of violence from happening."

Advocates are expected to push the measures at a public hearing on parole laws later on Wednesday. They are seeking measures that would enable older people to be eligible for parole as well as a proposal that would make more incarcerated people eligible for parole unless they pose a risk that can't be handled by supervision.

Those advocates include Carol Shapiro, who served as a parole board commissioner from 2017 to 2019.

“I saw firsthand the transformations of many men and women who came before the Parole Board," she said. "Sadly, we are keeping fully rehabilitated people in prison beyond any semblance of just sentencing and preventing them from serving as mentors, and as models of personal transformation, in their home communities. We need to provide people with an opportunity to move beyond the worst thing they ever did in their life. My own mother was crushed by a drunk driver when I was just a five year old child, but I grew up to believe in redemption and forgiveness."

The measures died in the Legislature last year amid a broader debate over public safety and crime ahead of a heated campaign season. Albany is not demonstrably different, however, hearing into 2023: Democrats, considered more open to changes in the criminal justice system, continue to wield large majorities in both the state Senate and Assembly.

But Republicans have also pushed back against further changes. They have called for a package of measures meant to make it harder for people behind bars considered too violent for release to be eligible for parole.

Those proposals include having videotaped systems of victims and their family members shown to the convicted, make it easier for the members of the parole board to be removed from the panel and require violent felony offenders to serve their maximum sentence.

"It’s time for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reject this unsafe path, and join us in our efforts to restore common sense and public safety in New York,” Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said last year.