Professor Steve Zeidman on CUNY TV: Rethinking Extreme Sentencing and the Possibility of Redemption
Professor Steve Zeidman, co-director of CUNY Law’s Defenders Clinic and founder of the Second Look Project: Beyond Guilt (SLP:BG), was recently featured on CUNY TV’s Keeping Relevant with Ronnie Eldridge to discuss the urgent need to reexamine extreme sentencing and open new legal pathways for redemption.
In the interview, Zeidman reflects on decades of public defense work and the devastating impact of punitive sentencing laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s. “The United States metes out some of the longest prison sentences in the world,” he notes. “Here, we unconscionably sentence teenagers to life in prison.”
Zeidman co-founded SLP:BG to challenge these sentences and advocate for the release of people who have served decades behind bars—many of whom were sentenced as teenagers or young adults under now-discredited legal frameworks. The initiative works in partnership with currently and formerly incarcerated people to seek clemency, resentencing, and parole, while also advocating for broader legislative and cultural change.
The interview aired shortly after Zeidman published an op-ed in the New York Daily News, titled “Grant clemency now: Hundreds of incarcerated New Yorkers deserve a second chance.” In the piece, Zeidman calls on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to use her clemency powers to reunite families and correct injustices rooted in outdated sentencing laws. He underscores that clemency is not only a legal mechanism, but a moral imperative.
Throughout the interview, Zeidman emphasizes the humanity of people who are incarcerated and the capacity for transformation, challenging the notion that time served should mean time forgotten. He also highlights the leadership and vision of formerly incarcerated advocates who are shaping the movement for second chances from the inside out, including several people who work within SLP:BG and the Defenders Clinic at CUNY Law.
Watch the full CUNY TV segment here.