Jail visits for judges: Letters to the Editor June 19, 2026

It’s wrong to mandate New York judges to visit jails and prisons at least once a year (“NY judges ‘jailed,’ ” June 17).This would prejudice judges in favor of defendants and convicted criminals.What about the crime victims? Why not order the judges to attend at least one wake and funeral or burial for a murder victim? Or spend a day with an orphan?Yes, the jails are tough places, but this should not color how a judge rules.Mark SeitelmanManhattanThe requirement for sentencing judges in New York to visit jails and prisons annually is reinforcement of the widely held belief that Democrats in New York City and across the country firmly support criminals over law-abiding citizens, taxpayers, and victims of crime.The new law does not say that judges will be required to visit graves of victims, families of victims or children left motherless.

Victims don’t count when the Democrats believe the criminal may be subject to day-old milk.When is this insanity going to end?Joseph GrassiPort St.

Lucie, Fla.The rule that judges must visit prisons is an effort to generate sympathy for thieves, rapists, murders and all those committing crimes against others.A more balanced approach would be to have those judges visit the morgue to view the bodies of innocent murder victims, attend group sessions of the victims of rape and abuse or spend time with the families of police officers slain on duty.George KoolurisBronxvilleChief Judge Rowan Wilson should rethink his pro-criminal mandate that state judges must visit prisons and jails each year to keep them “better connected to what transpires after sentencing.”I suggest Rowan instruct judges to visit the hospitals and cemeteries of victims of the out-of-control crime that put these savages in prison in the first place.That is, of course, provided they actually go to prison at all.Greg CantielloParrish, Fla.If judges are going to visit anyone, they should meet with victims’ families over the years to see how crimes hav...