Alliance Alert: The Alliance for Rights and Recovery has long been a strong supporter of ending solitary confinement in New York State. We proudly worked alongside the HALT Solitary Campaign to win passage of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act in 2021—a landmark victory to reduce torture in our prisons and jails.
Unfortunately, as reported this week, the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) continues to sidestep implementation of this critical law. By declaring broad “emergencies,” DOCCS has subjected thousands of incarcerated people to 20+ hours a day locked in their cells for months at a time. This violates both the letter and the spirit of HALT, which explicitly:
* Bans the use of solitary confinement for people with mental illness
* Requires meaningful out-of-cell time, programming, and access to mental health services
The repeated suspension of HALT’s provisions has left people in conditions that advocates and the courts have rightly described as inhumane and akin to torture. New York must end these emergency workarounds, fully comply with HALT, and ensure that incarcerated people—particularly those with mental health needs—are given the rights and services guaranteed under the law.
Alliance Commitment: Pushing for True HALT Implementation
The Alliance will continue to work closely with the HALT Solitary Campaign to demand full implementation of the HALT law. We will push the state to adhere to its provisions without further delay or evasion, particularly the protections barring solitary confinement for people with mental health challenges and the requirement to provide appropriate mental health services. Together, we will keep the pressure on policymakers and corrections officials until HALT’s standards are observed consistently across the state’s prison system.
Looking Ahead: Criminal Justice Reform at the Alliance Annual Conference
At our upcoming Alliance Annual Conference, we will host a panel dedicated to New York’s criminal justice reform initiatives. This session will feature:
* HALT Solitary Campaign representatives
* Center for Community Alternatives (CCA)
* Advocates for the Forensic Rehabilitation Act
The panel will explore the ongoing struggle to end solitary confinement, expand forensic peer and rehabilitation programs, and build systems that respect dignity and human rights. See below for conference registration information and reporting on DOCCS’ failure to adhere to the HALT law.
Unbreakable! Harnessing Our Power, Building Our Resilience, Inspiring Hope and Courage
Alliance for Rights and Recovery 43rd Annual Conference
Villa Roma Resort and Conference Center | September 29-October 1, 2025
Register Today Here! <https://www.accelevents.com/e/alliance-43rd-annual-conference>
Advocates Float Contempt Ruling for New York Prison Agency
By Chris Gelardi | New York Focus | August 20, 2025
The Legal Aid Society alleges that DOCCS declared an overbroad emergency to keep incarcerated people locked in their cells for upward of 20 hours a day.
The Reporters’ Notebook features bite-sized stories and updates from New York Focus reporters on the topics they cover.
On Tuesday, the Legal Aid Society asked a judge for a second time to compel the state prison agency to curtail its practice of keeping incarcerated people confined to their cells and dorms for upward of 20 hours a day — or else this time take the extraordinary step of holding the prison agency in contempt. New York state prisons have subjected thousands to such conditions for six months, including during extreme summer heat <https://nysfocus.com/2025/08/04/summer-heat-prisons-doccs-new-york-climate-change> ; the motion alleges that the prison agency hasn’t fulfilled the legal requirements to justify it.
The filing is part of an ongoing lawsuit accusing <https://nysfocus.com/2025/04/18/doccs-prison-strike-solitary-confinement-reform-halt> the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, of declaring an overbroad emergency to suspend the requirements of a 2021 solitary confinement reform law across the entire prison system. The law mandates that prisons and jails offer incarcerated people a minimum number of hours outside their cell each day, but allows DOCCS to pause compliance on a facility-by-facility basis during an emergency, which it declared after a prison guard strike in February.
Last month, a judge ordered <https://nysfocus.com/2025/07/02/halt-solitary-confinement-new-york-doccs-prisons> DOCCS to limit its suspension of the reform law, called HALT, to temporary pauses at individual prisons and offer “detailed facts” about why those facilities warranted the emergency orders. DOCCS then filed a declaration offering extensive data on staffing and conditions in each prison, but didn’t explicitly state which facilities were under states of emergency or when it planned to lift all the suspensions.
With the available information, “it’s not really possible to tell with certainty whether DOCCS is complying with HALT in a given prison,” said Riley Evans, staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.
The filing asks the court to order DOCCS to submit a new, compliant emergency declaration. The court can also hold the agency and Commissioner Daniel Martuscello <https://nysfocus.com/2025/03/03/dan-martuscello-new-york-prison> in civil contempt, the filing argues, which would allow the judge to impose fines or other measures to enforce compliance.
DOCCS, which said it does not comment on pending litigation, has claimed that it has been doing its best to improve conditions given what it describes as a staffing crisis <https://nysfocus.com/2025/07/22/new-york-doccs-prison-staffing-crisis-guard-strike> . Facilities adhere to the law when they can, Martuscello has said. He’s said he anticipates reintroducing HALT’s programming requirements by early fall, but has offered little indication of when all facilities will be able to let incarcerated people out of their cells for the law’s baseline of at least seven hours a day (or four for those in solitary confinement).
The filing is the latest development in a years-long dispute between advocates and the prison system over prisons’ implementation of HALT. Since the law went into effect in 2022, DOCCS has attempted to suspend or regulate around HALT’s requirements, including by pushing the limits <https://nysfocus.com/2022/11/07/anthony-annucci-new-york-prison-shackling> of its emergency carveouts, as New York Focus has reported <https://nysfocus.com/halt-implementation> .
Tuesday’s motion <https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=sh0h0YqmICQUpSUIKLScUA==> is also the latest in an ongoing power struggle that has seen DOCCS battling advocates, the state legislature, the courts, and its own staff over the treatment of the more than 30,000 people it incarcerates.
That struggle came to head this winter, as the prison system faced nearly unprecedented scrutiny after corrections officers were caught on video killing an incarcerated man at Marcy Correctional Facility. In February, officers walked off the job <https://nysfocus.com/new-yorks-prison-strike> , countering the narrative of guard brutality by highlighting what they describe as dangerous working conditions. One of the striking guards’ top demands <https://nysfocus.com/2025/02/20/biggest-issue-behind-new-york-prison-guard-strike> was the repeal or rollback of HALT.
The strike lasted three weeks and ended with DOCCS firing roughly 2,000 guards, creating the staffing shortage <https://nysfocus.com/2025/07/22/new-york-doccs-prison-staffing-crisis-guard-strike> . The prison system remains on pseudo-lockdown, with facilities canceling or severely shortening classes, recreation, therapeutic programming, and work release and limiting out-of-cell time to a precious few hours a day — all HALT violations absent an emergency.
“Martuscello’s filings in the case thus far suggest that he would rather have this law be at his discretion,” said Evans of the Legal Aid Society. “Thousands of New Yorkers are spending weeks and months locked in their cells without meaningful interaction with other people. The stakes here are nothing short of human dignity and torture.” Advocates Float Contempt Ruling for New York Prison… | New York Focus <https://nysfocus.com/2025/08/20/doccs-lawsuit-halt-solitary-confinement-prison-strike?utm_source=NY+Focus+Newsletter&utm_campaign=da4b5d3b96-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_08_20_04_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-da4b5d3b96-1366208562>