NYAPRS News: The New York Times editorial board has taken the unprecedented stop in calling on Governor Cuomo to sign the HALT Bill into law, a measure made all the more demanding with the finding that African Americans make up 58% of individuals in the ‘Box’ in NYS prisons. See our next posting for what you can do to push the Governor to act today!
Governor Cuomo, End Long-Term Solitary Confinement
Inmates can spend 23 hours a day in a tiny space cut off from most human contact. That’s cruel.
New York Times Editorial Board March 25, 2021
The State of New York stands poised to overhaul the use of solitary confinement in its prisons and jails — a practice widely recognized as inhumane, arbitrary and counterproductive.
Last week, state legislators passed the HALT (Humane Alternatives to Long-Term) Solitary Confinement Act, aimed at restricting the conditions under which inmates are held in isolation, including limiting confinement to no more than 15 consecutive days. The bill passed both the Senate and the Assembly with a supermajority of support and now awaits action by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He should move promptly to sign the reforms into law. The new restrictions would take effect a year after the bill becomes law.
Despite piles of research detailing the brutal physical and psychological toll exacted by solitary confinement, it is a common form of discipline. New York correctional employees have wide discretion to throw people into “the box,” as Special Housing Units are known, where inmates spend 23 hours a day in a tiny space cut off from most human contact. Signs that someone belongs to a gang can land them in the box. So can “eyeballing” a guard.
The isolation, confinement and sensory deprivation of solitary eats away at inmates’ bodies and minds — trauma many undoubtedly bring home to their families and communities. They suffer from rage, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. They become prone to self-harm, including suicide. Unsurprisingly, under these conditions, inmates often pile up additional infractions, or “tickets,” that extend their punishment. Some inmates languish in solitary for years or even decades. The damage they suffer can last far longer. The United Nations considers the use of solitary confinement beyond 15 consecutive days to be a form of torture. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has noted that the practice “literally drives men mad.”
Solitary confinement hits minority groups particularly hard. New data from the New York Civil Liberties Union shows that Black inmates make up 48 percent of the state’s incarcerated population, but 58 percent of those in Special Housing Units. Together, Black and Latino inmates make up 82 percent of those in solitary.
The problem stretches well beyond New York. At age 15, Ian Manuel landed in solitary in a Florida prison, where he languished for nearly two decades. “For 18 years I didn’t have a window to escape or soften the intensity of my confinement,” he writes in a Times Op-Ed of the soul-crushing experience. “I wasn’t permitted to talk to my fellow prisoners or even to myself. I didn’t have healthy, nutritious food; I was given just enough to not die.”
The horror of solitary is being addressed slowly, in bits and pieces. In 2016, President Barack Obama took action on the federal level. Among other reforms, he banned the confinement of juveniles in solitary in federal prisons. Various states have worked to improve their systems as well, some more aggressively than others.
New York has already taken some steps to address its problem. In 2015, as part of a legal settlement, the state agreed to limit who can be held in solitary and for how long. But gaping loopholes remain, allowing the system to be abused, and a more comprehensive overhaul is needed.
The HALT Act would bring New York’s system more into line with international humanitarian standards. Inmates could spend no more than 15 consecutive days in any type of segregated confinement, or 20 total days over the course of 60 days. Currently, inmates can be moved out of Special Housing Units but still remain in isolation in other types of units or in their own cells — a practice known as “keeplock.”
The act also would establish alternative rehabilitative measures, including special “residential rehabilitation units”; prohibit confining vulnerable populations to solitary; improve conditions in solitary; beef up reporting rules and enhance due process protections.
These reforms have been a long time coming. The HALT Solitary Campaign took root in 2012. Since then, its reforms have gradually gained steam and political support. Advocates say an earlier version of the bill looked as though it might pass in 2019, but Mr. Cuomo expressed concerns about the costs of implementation. Last November, the Partnership for the Public Good released a report showing that state and local governments would in fact realize an estimated $132 million in annual savings from reduced facilities costs, reduced medical costs and lower lawsuit expenses. Reformers are optimistic that the bill’s time has finally come.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/opinion/cuomo-solitary-confinement.html
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Advocates Point To Racial Disparities As Further Reason To Ban Solitary Confinement
By Edward McKinley Albany Times Union March 23, 2021
ALBANY — As a bill to end prolonged solitary confinement in New York prisons awaits action by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, data from the New York Civil Liberties Union shows that the number of Black people in solitary confinement is 10 percent higher than their share of the larger prison population. The same data shows that more than 80 percent of all people who have been held in solitary are either Black or Latino.
While experts say these racial disparities should be understood in the context of a system that discriminates against people of color, the racial gaps in solitary confinement rates are particularly severe, according to NYCLU’s data. The statistics were obtained as part of a settlement between the advocacy group and the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision related to a lawsuit over conditions in solitary confinement; DOCCS has to provide information on solitary rates regularly.
“I think it’s just like anything else within the criminal legal system,” said Jared Trujillo, policy counsel with the NYCLU. “From the inception of cases when we look at who is over-policed, when we look at the systems in our state that lead to certain individuals having certain interactions with police, when you look at who is most targeted for disciplinary actions within incarcerated settings, it’s Black and brown folks.”
As of Feb. 1, Black people make up 58 percent of those housed in Solitary Housing Units (SHU), called “the box” in prison, despite making up 48 percent of the prison population. People who are Black make up 18 percent of the total population of New York. The portion of people in solitary who are either Black or Latino is 82 percent. (This includes only people housed in SHUs, not people on what’s known as “keeplock” who are confined to their normal cells.)
DOCCS declined to comment, citing the litigation. A spokesman said on background that the agency works to reduce racial disparities.
The state Assembly and Senate last week passed the HALT Solitary Act, which places a number of restrictions on solitary use, notably banning its use after 15 days. The United Nations defines solitary confinement for more than than period as torture.
Row Davis is an anti-violence advocate with the Center for Community Alternatives who spent 29 years in New York state prison, including a month-long stint in a SHU after an argument with a corrections officer. He spent 23 hours a day in a unit with another inmate.
“That is one of the most horrible experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” Davis said. “A regular, typical day for someone who was just put in that environment is trying to remain sane.”
He likened it to the film “Groundhog Day,” only more nightmarish: “Every day is the same. It’s a mundane experience where you’re not being nurtured, you’re not being educated, you’re not being given the opportunity to release the frustrations that you have.”
Davis said there’s a widespread view that the mostly white guards and staff in state prisons, especially those located upstate, have racial prejudices that are reflected in the data on discipline, including solitary confinement.
Davis said he had arguments with the person he was housed with, but was able to stop it from escalating into violence due to an anti-violence program he’d completed behind bars.
“When you send someone off to war, what is one of the first things you do when they send you back to population? They debrief you,” Davis said. “They send you to an environment where … you can begin to normalize back into society. They don’t do that in prison. … You do not have to be a psychologist to understand the psychological aspect of that.”
“If the goal is to release individuals back into society, the No. 1 question is, what kind of people do you want to return back to society?”