Plan would require yearly prison visits by judges

For the past 50 years, New York’s judges have been required to visit a prison every four years — a little-known mandate that many ignored and others got out of the way with brief walk-throughs or stops in visiting rooms.

A new proposal from a subcommittee created by the state’s Office of Court Administration would significantly strengthen that internal rule, requiring judges who hand down sentences or make detention decisions to conduct meaningful prison visits annually.

The proposed change, released for public comment in late September, would be the first of its kind in the nation and mandate hundreds of in-depth judicial visits to correctional facilities across the state each year.

Michael Mushlin, a longtime prison-rights advocate and professor emeritus at the Elizabeth Haub School o