NYAPRS Note: Please use the following corrected link to write Governor Cuomo: https://p2a.co/vlchm7u
Over the past few days, NY Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the editorial boards of the New York Times and Rochester Democrat-Chronicle have call on Governor Andrew Cuomo to demand that he sign the Humane Alternatives To Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act into law.
Today be part of making history and join hundreds of criminal justice, mental health and civil rights advocacy groups to write or call Governor Cuomo!
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Write Governor Cuomo using the following link to generate your letter at https://p2a.co/vlchm7u
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call the Governor at 518-474-8390 and say: “I am a New Yorker and I urge you to sign the HALT Solitary Confinement Act into law immediately. Solitary confinement is torture. It causes immense suffering and devastating harm. It makes prisons, jails, and outside communities less safe. It is predominantly inflicted on Black and Latinx New Yorkers. It should have no place in New York State. The people of this state and the legislature have spoken. Sign HALT now to promote racial justice and human rights.”
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Sign Bill To End Long-Term Solitary Confinement
By the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle Editorial Board
Long-term solitary confinement is torture.
That was the first sentence of a D&C editorial two years ago calling for New York state to end an inhumane and counter-productive practice in New York state prisons.
It is also the first sentence of today’s editorial because long-term solitary confinement remains in effect. The difference now is that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature is all that’s needed to relegate long-term solitary confinement to the dustbin of history in New York.
The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act would put strict restrictions on when solitary could be employed. It has been passed by both the state Assembly and the state Senate.
Gov. Cuomo should waste no time in making the measure state law.
What the bill would do:
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put a 15-day limit on solitary confinement.
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ban the use of special diets as punishment.
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require a mental health screening before solitary is assigned.
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mandate a heightened level of care for prisoners in segregated confinement or residential rehabilitation units.
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and limit inmates from being in segregated confinement not only for no more than 15 days straight, but no more than 20 out of 60 days.
Why does this matter? For one, current practice violates the United Nations’ “standard minimum rules” for the treatment of prisoners. The United States loses credibility in promoting human rights elsewhere in the world when our own practices are cruel and inhumane.
For another, The Legislative Gazette on Friday cited a Columbia University study that associates long-term solitary confinement with “a number of potentially irreversible mental conditions.” These stem from sensory deprivation, lack of interaction with others and seemingly endless idle time in a space about the size of an elevator.
These research findings are deeply concerning. They indicate such confinement leads to lifelong harm for a prisoner who’s been kept “in the box” for lengthy periods of time measured in weeks, months or years. And it signals that the public itself can be harmed upon that prisoner’s release because the mental conditions can lead to aggressive behavior, the research shows.
The Legislative Gazette article also details a Zoom video call conducted last week by the bill’s advocates, among them religious leaders. One speaker was a sibling of a former prisoner who spent extended time in solitary.
“His mindset is so boggled, it’s like everyone’s against him,” the speaker said. “He’s afraid to be around people.”
That is simply tragic. Instead of rehabilitating prisoners, long-term solitary confinement is tearing them down and reducing substantially the likelihood those prisoners will become productive members of society after serving their time.
A punishment with such dire impact has no place in our prisons or our society. For one, the general public has no way of knowing if decisions made to place a particular prisoner into long-term solitary are made for arbitrary and capricious reasons.
For another, our corrections officers will be safer, and their jobs made easier, if the state Department of Corrections simply invests more into mental-health treatment.
As the D&C’s 2019 editorial stated, “prisons in Mississippi, North Dakota and Maine experienced marked declines in violence when they reduced the population in solitary confinement.”
So will New York’s. Sign the law please, governor.
Sign bill to end long-term solitary confinement (democratandchronicle.com)
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Coalition Applying Pressure On Governor To Sign Solitary Confinement Reform Bill
By Brandon Whiting Legislative Gazette March 26, 2021
A large and vocal coalition is calling for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign a bill restricting the use of solitary confinement in state prisons.
On March 18, the New York State Senate passed the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement, or HALT Act.
The bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Julia Salazar, would “limit the time an inmate can spend in segregated confinement, end the segregated confinement of vulnerable people, restrict the criteria that can result in such confinement, improve conditions of confinement, and create more humane and effective alternatives to such confinement.” (S.2836)
Mental Health advocacy groups, Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups are coming together this week urging the governor to sign the bill.
“I applaud the state legislators who have voted to HALT solitary and extend my gratitude and congratulations to the advocates who have worked for years to bring us to this moment,” said New York City Public Advocate Juumane Williams. “I call on Governor Cuomo to immediately sign this legislation, despite his past refusal to enact similar reforms through executive authority.”
The bill would limit the amount of time that an inmate can be held in solitary confinement to 15 days. It would also make special considerations for inmates who are below the age of 21 or above the age of 55, suffer from a mental disability, who are pregnant, in the postpartum period (within eight weeks of having delivered a baby) or caring for a child within the facility or those inmates who are at a risk for suicide.
The bill would also try to set stricter guidelines and conditions under which prisoners may be placed in solitary confinement, would provide for equal quality of food and access to care for inmates held in solitary confinement to those held in general population and would require that solitary confinement be subject to more departmental oversight.
The bill has been praised by several New York State politicians, activists and human rights advocates, many of which are currently petitioning for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign it immediately. Attempts to pass the bill have been made in the past; in 2019, the bill was shot down with a promise by Gov. Cuomo that his administration would make meaningful reforms to the practice of solitary confinement in New York without it. A year after this promise was made, those reforms have yet to come.
Solitary confinement has long been a controversial topic in the field of criminal justice. While proponents of solitary confinement argue that it can be used to ensure prisoner safety and discipline unruly prisoners, opponents say it equates to torture, leads to mental distress and suicidal ideation and violates prisoners’ human rights.
In a Zoom press conference this week with several faith leaders, community leaders, activists and people affected by solitary confinement, whether they be survivors of it themselves or family members of survivors, people shared their experiences to help show its effects.
“My brother has been incarcerated, at least 30 years of his life and now that he’s home, he’s still incarcerated mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally” said Britt Pledger.
Pledger said that, during his brother’s stay in prison, he spent more time in solitary confinement than he did in general population. “If you call his name too loud he jumps up like he’s ready to kill you.
“At home he stays in his room a lot, he’s very unsociable, his mindset is so boggled it’s like everyone’s against him, he’s afraid to be around people although he claims that he doesn’t because his pride and his ego won’t help him really get the help he needs mentally,” Pledger said.
The observations made by Pledger about his brother, while anecdotal in nature, have scientific weight behind them as well.
According to a study conducted by Federica Coppola, PhD in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University, solitary confinement has been “associated with a number of potentially irreversible mental conditions,” many of which can lead to “an increased risk of maladaptive action tendencies and socially dysfunctional behaviors, including aggression.”
To counteract the mental health effects of solitary confinement, the bill would make mental health evaluations before and during the stay in solitary confinement mandatory. It would also make mandatory the creation of Residential Rehabilitation Units, which would be wards in a prison dedicated to provide therapy and mental health counseling to prisoners. For the first time, the bill would also allow for access to legal counsel for inmates who are being held in solitary confinement. This stipulation would allow for better access to appeal in the case of inmates who feel as though they have been wrongly punished.
The stories told by those who experienced solitary confinement themselves, often brought tears to the eyes of those that told them.
“I’ve never been let down by the human race so much, then by the situations I went through [in prison],” said Hector Rodriguez, a former prisoner. Rodriguez recalled a phenomena known as “Fight Night” where the correctional officers would pit younger inmates against one another in fights for their own entertainment.
“That was the most brutal thing I’ve seen in my life,” said Rodriguez, fighting back tears. “To this day, I’m damaged, emotionally, I’m fucked up, excuse my language.”
Rodriguez also recalled how when COVID hit, he and 52 fellow inmates sat in a cell for twenty three and a half hours.
“We all sat in that cell for twenty three and a half hours waiting for our food to come in a slot through the door like a dog,” said Rodriguez. “I got many stories, I’ve been damaged a lot, I been through the system, I got four times I’ve been through the Department of Corrections. It needs to change.”
Rodriguez’s story brought another former solitary survivor, Danielle Evering, to tears as well.
“I was in there [solitary confinement] for four years straight, I came out was placed in keep-lock (a lesser form of solitary confinement) for two weeks, an officer seen me out that didn’t like me and caused a situation and I was placed back in there, so my total time was six years,” said Evering.
She recounts being fed substandard food, being hosed, being stripped of her clothes, being forced to bathe herself in a bucket, being prohibited from sending or receiving letters to and from her family and having to be snuck food by other inmates in order to survive.
“It’s very inhumane, it’s unhealthy, and when he was just telling me his story, that’s what made me cry, because I’ve been through so much in my little box,” said Evering.