Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement (MHASC) and the HALT Solitary Campaign released a new report with analysis of data on sanctions to solitary confinement and alternatives from the first year of the HALT Solitary Law’s implementation (2022). This report documents that, on the positive side, the HALT Solitary Law itself led to more than a 54% reduction in the number of hearings resulting in solitary confinement in New York prisons. However, the report documents how New York’s prisons violated the law by sending people to solitary for reasons prohibited by the law, imposing extremely long disciplinary confinement sanctions, and warehousing people in units meant to be alternatives to solitary for months and years. People in alternatives are receiving the most disciplinary confinement sanctions and time as any units in the prison system.
The report calls for New York’s prisons to fully implement the HALT Solitary Confinement Law, including by, among other critical provisions, following the law’s conduct restrictions on placement in solitary and alternatives, stopping the placement of people with mental health needs and disabilities in solitary, reducing the length of disciplinary confinement sanctions, following release mechanisms from alternative units, and more.
Read the full report here: https://nycaic.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Analysis-of-Disciplinary-Actions-During-1ST-HALT-Year-Final-Draft-with-appendices.pdf.
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