The 2021 passage of HALT legislation to require prison and jail inmates who have a disability or are pregnant to be moved to rehabilitation units rather than to endure the torture of solitary confinement has long been opposed by the correctional officers’ union and not been fully implemented by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS).
Following the recent filmed murder by correctional officers of Robert Brooks, an African American inmate at the Marcy Correctional facility, correctional officer strikes ensued this past week, throwing the prisons were thrown into very dangerous states of chaos and leading to Governor Hochul’s deployment of the National Guard. Today 6 COs were officially charged with Mr Brooks’ murder.
The state has suspended provisions of the HALT law, an action that our campaign leaders are calling illegal. As a longtime member of the HALT campaign, the Alliance urges you to take action to call on Governor Hochul and DOCCS Commissioner Martuscello to reverse the suspension of the bill’s provisions and to fully implement the law by signing on to the Campaign’s letter https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdEH0nvUOiEriAc7A9YowBbpBL9mqix9aIoM8mIwZjzOHtjug/viewform.
Here’s today’s statement from the Campaign.
**HALT CAMPAIGN STATEMENT***
HALT Solitary Campaign Condemns Governor Hochul’s Illegal Move to Suspend HALT Law
(New York) – Today, on the day that prosecutors unsealed indictments against the guards who brutally murdered Robert Brooks, New York State Department of Correction and Community Supervision Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III issued a memo in response to prison guards’ illegal work stoppage purporting to indefinitely suspend unspecified provisions in the HALT Solitary law as well as providing amnesty to guards who abandoned their jobs and left incarcerated people on lockdown with limited or no access to food, medicine, medical care, programs, or visits. In response, Jerome Wright, Co-Director of the HALT Solitary Campaign and a survivor of nearly a decade in solitary confinement, released the following statement:
“The HALT Solitary Confinement Law was enacted with supermajority support in both houses of the state legislature and signed into law. Governor Hochul herself praised the law when it was signed. She cannot now unilaterally undo that.
Let’s be clear about what we’re talking about: People with serious mental health conditions and physical disabilities will be tortured with long-term solitary confinement if this order isn’t reversed. People will die – by suicide, by overdose, and at the hands of emboldened guards who know they can get away with anything simply by disappearing their abuse victims in solitary confinement. Moreover, this action will make prisons less safe, because solitary confinement only worsens behavioral challenges, while evidence-based alternatives – which DOCCS has resisted since the law took effect three years ago – are proven to improve safety for all.”