NYAPRS Note: This week marked both NYS Senate and House approval of the landmark HALT measure that eliminates the use of segregated confinement for vulnerable incarcerated populations, including people who have a physical, mental, or medical disability and help transform our prisons and jails to a focus on rehabilitation versus solely on punishment.
Hear from leading members of the Campaign for Alternatives to Long-term Isolated Confinement that has worked tirelessly to get the bill to this point. Hear from leaders in the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Long-term Confinement how their own powerful personal experiences in the Box has fueled their fire, what needs to be done to get the bill fully enacted into law and the connection between racism and the criminal justice system.
The Connection between Race, Mental Illness and Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons
Imprisoned New Yorkers in solitary confinement spend twenty-three to twenty-four hours a day in space no bigger than an elevator, with no access to meaningful human interaction, for weeks, months, years, and even decades. Isolated confinement fails to address, and often exacerbates the symptoms of mental illnesses, as people deteriorate psychologically, physically, and socially while in ‘the Box’. At the same time, African Americans and Latinos are sent to solitary confinement more frequently and for longer durations, a pattern that led the New York Times to document what they called “the scourge of racial bias in New York State’s prisons.” The presenters will give powerful personal testimony of experiences in the Box and why NYAPRS has joined them to fight for passage of Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act and the connection between racism and solitary confinement.
Date and Time: March 19, 2021 from noon to 1:30pm EST
Presented By: Jerome Wright, Scott Paltrowitz, Anisah Subur-Mumin and Natasha White, New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, Harvey Rosenthal, NYAPRS
Register Here