Legislators and Over 800 People from Across the State Rally in the Capitol Demanding New York Complete Unfinished Business by Passing HALT Solitary Confinement Act Immediately

January 21, 2020 by

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Jerome Wright

jwright@nycaic.org, 716.909.2425 

(Albany, NY) — Over 800 people, including survivors of solitary confinement, family members of people in solitary, New York State legislators (see thread), and other advocates held a rally and press conference in the Capitol to demand that New York complete the unfinished business from last session, follow the will of a majority of state legislators, and vote to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (S.1623/A.2500) to end the racist torture of prolonged solitary confinement. On the day after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, advocates invoked the Reverend Doctor and his time in solitary to call out the ongoing racist infliction of solitary in New York. While human rights standards adopted by the United Nations state that solitary beyond 15 days is torture for all people in all circumstances, New York State regularly holds people in solitary for months, years, and decades.

Alicia Barraza, mother of the late Ben Van Zandt, said: “As the parent of a young man who took his life in solitary confinement, I demand that our legislative leaders and Governor Cuomo put politics aside and do the right thing. Solitary confinement serves no useful purpose, and destroys the lives of incarcerated people and their families. Make New York State truly progressive and pass the HALT bill in 2020.”

Serena Liguori, Executive Director of New Hour for Women and Children of Long Island, said: “As a survivor of 23-hour lockdown myself, I know the deep and lasting scars isolated confinement creates. New Hour continues to work with incarcerated women, some of who are pregnant and enduring this barbaric practice. It is unconscionable lawmakers have not put an end to this form of torture.”

NYS Senate HALT Sponsor and Correction Committee Chair Luis Sepúlveda said: “The time has long come to end solitary confinement in New York State. We refuse to let torture take place in our state facilities. We know that solitary confinement does not change behavior nor rehabilitate. This is the year we end it and instead create meaningful pathways for safety and rehabilitation for all those impacted. I am proud to stand with hundreds of organizers, leaders, and survivors to fight for human rights and dignity in our justice system, and to pass HALT.”

Nicole Triplett, Policy Counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said: “New York has long engaged in state-sanctioned torture through its use of prolonged solitary confinement of individuals who are incarcerated. Locking people in isolation and depriving them of social interaction, sensory stimulation, and adequate medical attention causes psychological and physical harm that last long after a person’s release. Legislators have the opportunity to end prolonged solitary confinement by passing the HALT Act and push New York further in ensuring that our legal system starts treating people as people.”

NYS Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie said: “Solitary confinement is as counterproductive as it is cruel. The majority of countries around the world have recognized that this torturous practice has no place in a modern, humane society, and it’s time that our state do the same.”

NYS Senator Julia Salazar said: “Solitary confinement for punishment purposes is torture and has no place in New York State prisons. We need to move beyond a punitive approach to ensuring community safety and emphasize rehabilitation and reentry for people impacted by the mass incarceration system. I fully support the HALT Solitary campaign and this legislation and I hope to continue working with the coalition to create better conditions and better results for our prison system.”

NYS Assemblywoman Carmen De La Rosa said: “The use of solitary confinement in prisons to address discipline as a form of punishment is completely inhumane. It endangers the physical and psychological health of individuals and it causes even greater negative impacts to individuals who are in vulnerable conditions. Solitary confinement is abusive and we need to make sure we pass HALT in order to end torture in New York prisons.”

NYS Senator James Sanders Jr. said: “Long-term solitary confinement amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and has been shown to cause physical, emotional and psychological damage. Moreover it fails to address and treat the underlying cause of an offender’s behavior. We need to rehabilitate people in prisons and jails so that they can become productive members of society and are less likely to commit future crimes. There can be no benefit to locking someone away in a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day without any meaningful human contact or therapy.  I am proud to join my colleagues in supporting the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, which will implement restrictions on who can be confined and for how long and will create more humane and effective alternatives to such confinement.”

Assistant NYS Assembly Speaker Félix W. Ortiz said: “It’s time for New York to end the use of long-term isolated confinement for incarcerated people and exclude certain vulnerable individuals entirely. It’s the right thing to do. All humans deserve to be treated humanely.”

“The Governor’s proposed changes to solitary confinement are inadequate and do not go far enough to stop the psychological torture and isolation of incarcerated New Yorkers. The proposed regulations still allow for elderly New Yorkers to be put in isolation, and give New York jurisdiction to hold a person in solitary confinement for lengths that amount to torture under United Nations standards. The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act will put New York State on a path towards significantly limiting the use of solitary confinement and healing our communities through rehabilitative solutions. I thank the solitary survivors, their loved ones, and the HALT Solitary campaign coalition for their tireless advocacy on behalf of incarcerated New Yorkers – I am proud to stand with you,” said State Senator Alessandra Biaggi (D-Bronx/Westchester).

NYS Assembly Member Aravella Simotas said: “Solitary confinement is a brutal practice that causes severe physical and psychological harm to incarcerated people. Our state cannot allow this cruel and inhumane abuse to continue in our prisons. While we have taken strides to reform our criminal justice system, our work is incomplete until we pass the HALT Solitary Confinement Act and put an end to this torture once and for all.”

NYS Senator Neil Breslin said: “This critically important legislation will pave the way for the more humane treatment of incarcerated individuals, while at the same time making the rehabilitation process more effective.”

NYS Assemblymember Dan Quart said: “Our failure to enact the HALT Solitary Confinement Act remains a stain on last year’s legislative session. Solitary confinement is a punitive, torturous practice that carries no public safety benefits and is contrary to rehabilitation. It is long past time we put an end to the use of long-term solitary confinement in our state’s corrections system.”

BACKGROUND: In his autobiography, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., described his experience in solitary: “For more than twenty-four hours, I was held incommunicado, in solitary confinement…Those were the longest, most frustrating and bewildering hours I have lived. Having no contact of any kind, I was besieged with worry. I suffered no physical brutality at the hands of my jailers. Some of the prison personnel were surly and abusive…Solitary confinement, however, was brutal enough…You will never know the meaning of utter darkness until you have lain in such a dungeon.”

Despite the fact that Black people represent only 18% of New York State’s total population, Black people are 48% of people in New York State prisons, and 57% of people in solitary confinement. A 2016 New York Times investigation documented what people who have been most harmed by the prison system have known for decades, namely that there is a “scourge of racial bias” in New York’s imposition of solitary confinement and parole release denials. Yet over three years after that investigation, Governor Cuomo has still done nothing to address this urgent crisis. Use of solitary confinement has actually increased since Governor Cuomo claimed to have implemented reforms in 2015. Advocates are calling for lawmakers to enact HALT – which has majority support in both the Senate and Assembly – to end this racist torture and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives.

Solitary confinement is torture. It causes intense suffering and devastating physical and psychological harm. Contrary to the press statements of the Cuomo Administration, a new landmark report from The New York Civil Liberties Union, revealed that the use of solitary is actually increasing in the Governor’s prisons. While the SHU population has had some decreases, the number of people sentenced to Keeplock – another form of solitary – has increased by so much that it more than offsets the oft-reported progress (with nearly 40,000 sentences to solitary last year).

While Governor Cuomo has put forward new regulations on solitary, an analysis shows these regulations will perpetuate solitary and allow people to be held in solitary for months and years, particularly in light of past practice evidenced by this latest report. The NYCLU’s report analyzed the Governor’s proposed regulations in comparison with the HALT Solitary Confinement Act and strongly endorses HALT as the way forward. Notably, the Governor’s regulations would leave people in Keeplock with no time limits, one of several ways people could be held in endless solitary, along with unlimited cycling back into solitary after purported time limits and no time limits on so-called alternatives that amount to solitary by another name.

By contrast, the HALT Solitary Confinement Act would limit solitary confinement in all its forms in line with international human rights standards (including by having a 15 day limit and preventing cycling after the limit), and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives.

Thanks to efforts led by survivors of solitary and their family members, there are more than enough votes in the Legislature to pass HALT. 34 New York State Senators from Long Island to Upstate New York are officially co-sponsoring the HALT Solitary Confinement Act – a clear majority – and additional Senators have committed to vote for the bill as well. 79 New York State Assembly Members also officially co-sponsor HALT – another clear majority – and the bill passed in that house in 2018.

Thousands of people remain in solitary confinement in New York’s prisons and jails each day, and tens of thousands each year experience this torture: locked in a cell without any meaningful human contact or programs. They are disproportionately Black and Latinx people, young people, gender non-conforming people, and people with mental illness.

People continue to spend months, years, and decades in solitary (including 30+ years) in New York. The sensory deprivation, lack of normal interaction, and extreme idleness of solitary can lead to severe psychological, physical, and even neurological damage. More than 30% of all prison suicides in New York take place in solitary.  States that have reduced the use of solitary have seen a positive impact on safety for both incarcerated people and staff.

Community members are calling for New York State Legislators and Governor Cuomo to pass HALT immediately. Learn more at www.nycaic.org.

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NEWS: “Severe Limitations” Make Cuomo’s Solitary Confinement Proposal Ineffective, Says #HALTsolitary Campaign

January 21, 2019 by

New York Must Pass #HALTsolitary Now!

NYCAIC’s response to the Governor’s proposal re solitary confinement

In response to the Governor’s budget proposal to limit the use of solitary confinement in New York, the NYCAIC #HALTsolitary campaign urges the Governor and the legislature to take a much more humane, effective, and comprehensive approach by finally passing the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, S.1623/A.2500. We also urge the Governor and the legislature to adopt far more fundamental changes to the entire injustice/incarceration system, including related to parole, pre-trial justice, voting rights for people in prison, and more, and support the recommendations of allies such as Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP), Citizen Action, JustLeadershipUSA, VOCAL-NY, Drug Policy Alliance, defenders organizations, and more.

The Governor’s recognition of the need to limit solitary confinement in New York is a positive step. However, the proposal has severe limitations, including that it would 1) continue to allow people to be held in solitary indefinitely, 2) leave behind many of the people who can suffer the most from solitary, 3) continue to allow people to be sent to solitary for minor rule violations, 4) not provide adequate alternatives to solitary, 5) continue to allow anyone to be held in solitary for periods of time that amount to torture, and 6) allow people to be warehoused in alternative units indefinitely. Specifically, some of the key limitations of the Governor’s proposal include:

  1. Indefinite Solitary Continued: People can still be held for months, years, decades, or indefinitely in solitary confinement without limit under this proposal. All of the protections in the proposal only seem to apply to “segregated confinement” which is defined in existing law as “disciplinary confinement” in “special housing units or longterm keeplock units”. There do not seem to be any limitations (related to length of time or conditions) for people in various other forms of solitary confinement, including people held keeplock in their own cells (rather than in SHU or a longterm keeplock unit), administrative segregation, or protective custody. The protections of HALT would apply to all of these types of confinement, which all amount to solitary.
  2. Leaving Behind Some of the People Most Vulnerable to Harm: The proposal leaves behind many groups of people who are most vulnerable to be particularly harmed by solitary confinement, including people with pre-existing mental health conditions, young people aged 18-21, and people with physical disabilities. The only two “special populations” that would be barred from solitary under the proposal are adolescents in a designated Adolescent Facility and pregnant women/new mothers. HALT would also bar people with mental health needs, elderly people, young people aged 21 and younger, and people with physical disabilities since all of these groups face particularly devastating harm in solitary.
  3. Solitary for Minor Rule Violations: There are no restrictions on the criteria of who can be placed in solitary under this proposal, so that people will still be able to be sent to solitary for almost any minor, non-violent rule violation. HALT would restrict the criteria for who can be placed in segregation or alternative units to more serious conduct.
  4. Inadequate Alternatives to Solitary: The alternative Residential Rehabilitation Units in the proposal can still operate as solitary. Under the proposal, the alternative RRUs allow only 5 hours out of cell in a day and only four days a week (rather than 7 hours a day, 7 days a week under HALT). That means people will still be held in full 22-24 hour a day solitary three days a week, and will still be locked down at least 19 hours the other days. Also, there is no requirement for the out-of-cell hours to involve congregate interactions with other people or even a requirement for the out-of-cell time to involve programs. Under the proposal, the out-of-cell time could even, for instance, involve a person being alone in a cage for several hours of recreation. In other words, people could still be alone 24 hours a day in the alternative units.
  5. Continued Routine Practice of Torture. The proposal would codify lengths of time in solitary that amount to torture. The time limit on segregation would be 90 days as of April 2021, 60 days by Oct 2021, and then ultimately 30 days by April 2022. In addition, there does not seem to be any protection against people being returned to solitary very shortly after being removed at the designated limits. HALT would create a limit of 15 days in line with how international standards define torture, and protect against people being quickly returned to solitary through a limit of 20 days out of any 60. Also it is not clear why NY needs over three years to implement the proposed 30-day limit. The number of people who will lose their minds or their lives in that time is not acceptable. Moreover, again these time limits would not apply to people in administrative segregation, keeplock in their own cells, or protective custody. Under HALT the time limits would apply to anyone in solitary.
  6. Warehousing in Alternative Units: There does not appear to be any time limit on being held in an alternative RRU unit, and in fact the proposal allows time in the RRUs to be involuntarily extended beyond a person’s disciplinary sanction, so people could end up being warehoused in what may end up being a very punitive environment for months, years, and even longer. HALT has limits on how long someone can stay in an RRU.

Solitary confinement is torture. Thousands of people, disproportionately Black and Latinx people, suffer in solitary in NY each day, and tens of thousands each year: 22 to 24 hours a day in a cell without any meaningful human contact or programs. People continue to spend months, years, and decades in solitary in NY (including over 30 years). These conditions cause devastating physical, mental, and behavioral harm. The entire United Nations, including the US, passed rules prohibiting solitary beyond 15 days for any person, because it otherwise amounts to torture. Colorado implemented a 15-day limit in its prisons and reduced the number of people in solitary from 1,500 to 18.  HALT would similarly include a 15-day limit on solitary, and would create more humane and effective alternatives. States that have reduced solitary have seen a positive impact on safety for both incarcerated people and correction officers.

The Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, S.1623/A.2500, is the critical bill to remedy the harm of solitary confinement. It would end the torture of solitary confinement for all people in New York prisons and jails, and create more humane and effective alternatives. The Mental Health Association of NYS, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the NY Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, Labor-Religion Coalition of NYS, and over 200 organizations across New York State now support HALT. So do over 120 NY legislators, including 99 New York Assembly Members who voted to pass HALT in 2018 and a majority of New York Senators (HALT currently has 32 co-sponsors in the Senate and a number of other Senators who have committed to vote for HALT). HALT is the only bill that will end the torture of solitary for all people in New York prisons and jails. It is urgent that the legislature and the Governor immediately enact HALT. They must also make other urgent and necessary changes related to parole, pre-trial justice, voting rights for people incarcerated, higher education for people incarcerated, and many other changes.

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NEWS: Reform Advocates Pushing Legislation to Limit Solitary Confinement

January 14, 2019 by

By Emilie Ruscoe. Reprinted from Politico.

Prison reform advocates want to lock up the governor. Sort of.

A full-scale replica of a solitary confinement cell will land near the Capitol Tuesday morning as several lawmakers and activists call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to spend 24 hours in an actual cell so he can fully understand what solitary confinement is like. The head of Colorado’s prison system did just that several years ago, leading to his support for reform measures.

Advocates are pushing legislation that would restrict solitary confinement to 15 days. They are also supporting parole reform, pretrial detention reform, ending cash bail and ensuring the right to speedy trial. The governor has made criminal justice reform, including an end to cash bail, a priority for this year’s legislative session.

“We hope to provide a much, much safer and more rehabilitative environment for everyone involved,” said Doug van Zandt, whose son Benjamin killed himself in solitary confinement at Fishkill Correctional Facility in 2014.

According to data from the New York State Department of Corrections, more than 3,000 people are in solitary confinement on a daily basis in the state’s prisons and jails, some for years on end.

More than 120 state legislators have supported previous versions of solitary restriction legislation. A bill passed the Assembly last year but it stalled in the Senate.

This year’s version of the bill is sponsored by legislators whose districts are adjacent to Rikers Island: Sen. Luis Sepùlveda (D-Bronx) and Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry (D-Queens).

Solitary confinement restrictions have been opposed by the Correction Officers Benevolent Association of New York City. COBA officials have characterized the use of solitary as a necessary tool for their work. In 2017, it sued the de Blasio administration over a change in policy restricting the use of solitary on people under the age of 21.

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NEWS: #HALTsolitary Confinement Act PASSED in the NY State Assembly

July 5, 2018 by

On Tuesday, June 12, by a vote of 99 – 45, the New York State Assembly passed the Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (A.3080B-Aubry / S.4784A-Parker). The announcement from the Speaker that the bill had passed was greeted with cheers and applause from CAIC members in attendance in the Assembly gallery.

In comments made from the Assembly floor preceding the vote, lead sponsor Jeffrion Aubry of District 35 in Queens made it clear why the reforms in the bill are so urgently needed: “Solitary confinement has been identified by the United Nations as torture under the Mandela Rules. Inmates in SHUs are locked into their cells 23 hours a day with one hour of recreation time in an outdoor cage. They get no phone calls, no personal property, no programming, no religious services and there are no legal limits to how long they can be kept. Some prisoners have been in SHU for decades.”

“What we are doing with the bill,” Aubry explained to his fellow Assemblymembers, “is saying to the state, saying to our population, saying to the people who are incarcerated that we have heard you. Many of them have been to see you in your offices who have suffered from this. They have asked for relief for those who they have left behind. It is but right and good that we enact this bill.”

The #HALTsolitary campaign, which has long engaged in organizing, education, and advocacy to get the bill enacted into law, issued the following statement:

“The #HALTsolitary campaign applauds Speaker Carl Heastie, lead Assembly sponsor Jeffrion Aubry, and the New York State Assembly for passing legislation to end the torture of solitary confinement and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives. Thousands of people remain in solitary confinement in New York’s prisons and jails each day, isolated 22 to 24 hours a day in a cell without any meaningful human contact or programs, often for months, years, and even decades. They are disproportionately Black and Latinx people, young people, gender non-conforming people, and people with mental illness, often held in isolation for non-violent infractions or even for speaking out about abuse by staff. If the State Senate fails to act to end this racist and destructive practice this session, as appears likely even though HALT has 25 co-sponsors in that house, Governor Cuomo must implement the reforms we seek administratively.”

Referring to the fact that Governor Cuomo could at any time write most of the measures in the HALT Bill into law through executive action, Aubry exhorted his colleagues to take a definitive stand: “The executive [branch] could have ended this immediately. They could have looked at the history of SHUs [Special Housing Unit, aka solitary confinement] and immediately taken the action to stop the process. Looked at what’s going on in the world and stopped the process. But they haven’t. Not just this administration, but administrations in the past. Sometimes we as legislators have to step up to the plate and say what is right is right.”

Despite strong support for HALT in the State Senate, the bill was not brought to the floor for a vote before the end of session in late June.

Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo and NYS Commissioner of Corrections Anthony Annucci have both ignored multiple invitations from CAIC to spend 24 hours in a solitary confinement cell, as the Corrections Commissioner of Colorado did before implementing major reforms.

#HALTsolitary Confinement Act Passes in the NY State Assembly – SEE THE FULL 9-MINUTE VIDEO:

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NEWS: CAIC to Cuomo: Spend 24 Hours in Solitary Confinement

January 5, 2018 by

HALT Solitary Confinement Act, CAIC Protest at Governor Cuomo Officeby Victoria Law. Excerpted from The Nation.

After being accused of cursing at a corrections officer, Jessica Concepcion, seven months pregnant, spent the Christmas of 2006 in solitary confinement at Bedford Hills, New York’s maximum-security prison for women. Confined to her a cell for 23 consecutive hours, she had no opportunity for any human interaction, let alone a chance to wish her family a merry Christmas. “It was torture,” she told me. “All you have is those walls to talk to. You don’t have nothing else but those walls.”

On Friday, December 22, Concepcion and her wife Xena Grandichelli, who has also spent time in solitary, joined over a dozen advocates outside Governor Andrew Cuomo’s midtown office to sing Christmas carols. But they weren’t simply spreading holiday cheer; they were urging him to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, which would limit time in isolation to 15 consecutive days and create alternatives for those who need longer periods of separation.

The protesters held aloft a 24-by-36 inch holiday card that invited the governor to spend 24 hours in solitary. The invitation may seem outrageous, but it’s not unprecedented.

Read the full article at The Nation.

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NEWS: Coalition of State Lawmakers Urges New York to End Solitary Confinement

November 10, 2017 by

On November 9, more than 40 New York State legislators signed a strongly worded letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo and Corrections Commissioner Anthony Annucci to end the use of extended solitary confinement in the state’s prisons and local jails. “[W]e respectfully urge you to end the torture of long-term segregated confinement and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives,” the lawmakers write.

The letter cites a devastating report published in September by Disability Rights New York, which found rampant neglect and abuse, including extreme and prolonged isolation, of individuals with mental illness at Attica Correctional Facility.

The letter refers to the “severe and lasting psychological, physical and social damage” caused by solitary, and to “the systemic way in which solitary confinement is disproportionately inflicted on Black people in our state prisons.” It concludes that “Our prisons are in crisis and our constituents and communities—to which the vast majority of incarcerated people eventually return—are suffering as a result.”

The legislators who signed the letter are all co-sponsors of the Humane Alternative to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, and cite the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement as its “grassroots partner” in working toward passage of the bill.

Until that happens, the lawmakers urge Cuomo and Annucci to voluntarily implement the HALT Act’s main provisions in the state prison system. “These provisions include prohibiting solitary confinement for especially vulnerable populations such as young people, the elderly, and people with mental illness and developmental disabilities; limiting solitary confinement to 15 consecutive days, or 20 days in any 60 day period, for all people; and ensuring that temporary separation in the interest of safety does not mean isolation by providing access to rehabilitative programs and meaningful human interaction.”

To read the full letter, click here.

You can also read the AP Story in the NY Daily News.

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