NEW YORK – New York state prisons continue to impose prolonged solitary confinement on their population despite the fact that a law banning such sentences took effect a year ago, according to a report released Wednesday by the Correctional Association, an independent organization with authority from the legislature to oversee prisons.
The report also includes allegations of staff abuse that show the dysfunction of the Humane Alternatives to Prolonged Solitary Confinement Act (HALT), launched in March 2022.
This law, in addition to limiting the maximum that a person can remain incarcerated to 15 days, also includes measures that reduce the severity of confinement, such as a minimum time out of cell or a therapeutic program.
It also reduces the number of disciplinary offenses that can be sanctioned under this measure and excludes various groups of people, such as those under 21, the elderly, pregnant women and people with disabilities or mental illness. .
The Association acknowledges in its report that in anticipation of law enforcement, the Department of Correction has ended the practice of “keep lock”, reduced the use of Special Housing Units (SHU), another form of segregation, and closed solitary confinement Southport Prison.
However, the Association, which monitored the application of the law for eight months, found that this agency systematically violates almost all articles: detention of people in the SHU up to more than six times the authorized limit of 15 days and disproportionately sending blacks and Latinos into solitary confinement.
According to the #HALTsolitary Campaign group, while black people make up 18% of New York’s population, they make up 48% of those in prison and 64% in solitary confinement.
There are other violations that the Department of Prisons practices, such as keeping people with mental health conditions and disabilities in solitary confinement and not allowing inmates the time required to leave their cells” including locking people in for 21-24 hours a day, which is tantamount to solitary confinement by any other name,” the #HALTsolitary campaign said in a statement reacting to the report.
“It is more than disturbing that state prisons, like many local prisons, systematically violate almost every element of the law and continue to send people – disproportionately black and Latino – to solitary confinement for decades. weeks or even months,” said Senator Julia. Salazar, one of the authors of the HALT law.
Activist Roger Clark, solitary confinement survivor and member of the #HALTsolitary campaign, said he was “deeply concerned” about the violations noted in the report because this law “was enacted to ensure that those incarcerated are not subjected to inhumane conditions and harmful effects of prolonged solitary confinement”, which can have “devastating effects” on the mental state.
“It is critical that Governor Kathy Hochul acts now to ensure prisons and prisons follow the law and end this torture,” he said in the statement.