For Immediate Release...

August 31, 2020

Contact: Anisah Sabur, anisah613@gmail.com

***STATEMENT***

IN LIGHT OF LAYLEEN POLANCO SETTLEMENT, NEW YORK CITY AND STATE MUST END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT TO ENSURE NO ONE ELSE IS TORTURED AND KILLED BY SOLITARY

(New York, NY) — Today, Anisah Sabur, Statewide Organizer for the #HALTsolitary Campaign and a survivor of solitary confinement, released the following statement on the announcement that New York City provided the largest ever monetary settlement for the death of a person in custody in New York City to Layleen Polanco’s family:

“We continue to be devastated that Layleen Polanco was tortured and killed in solitary confinement, and hope this settlement brings some measure of comfort to Layleen’s family. We demand that New York City and New York State immediately and fully end solitary confinement to ensure that what happened to Layleen never happens again.”

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Led by survivors of solitary confinement and family members of those who have died in solitary, the #HALTsolitary Campaign fights to abolish this torture.

BACKGROUND

As massive numbers of people have risen up to demand that the state stop killing Black people and other People of Color in the streets and behind bars, there is an ongoing and deadly scourge of racial bias in New York State prisons that has never been addressed. While Black people represent only 18% of all New Yorkers, 48% of people in New York State prisons are Black people and 57% of people in solitary confinement are Black people. Likewise, over 80% of the people who have died in prison since the outbreak of COVID-19 are People of Color (59% are Black people). Thanks to efforts led by survivors of solitary and their family members, there are more than enough votes in the Legislature to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (S1623/A2500) in the New York State Legislature. An analysis shows HALT will save money.

• Research shows solitary confinement causes immense suffering, devastating physical and mental harm, and far too commonly leads to psychosis, heart disease, self-mutilation, and death.
• The #HALTsolitary campaign recently released a devastating new report documenting a surge in suicide and self-harm in New York prisons, driven by solitary confinement. A total of 18 people died by suicide in NY prisons alone in 2019, the highest rate since at least 2000 and a rate 88% higher than the national average.
• Experts agree that the sensory deprivation, lack of normal interaction, and extreme idleness of solitary can lead to severe psychological, physical, and even neurological damage.
• New Cornell research found that even a few days in solitary confinement – and even only one or two days of solitary – led to significantly heightened risk of death by accident, suicide, violence, and other causes.
• One study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that solitary confinement is associated with a 31% increase in hypertension. Approximately one-in-three people in solitary who participated in the study were more likely to experience heart attacks, strokes, and – unsurprisingly – higher degrees of loneliness, which also contributes to heart disease.
• Another study found solitary confinement is associated with increased rates of death after release, particularly by suicide as well as overdose.
• During the current pandemic, the harm and spread of the virus has been exacerbated by the failure to release people from prison and by the state’s medically inappropriate and dangerous use of solitary confinement in lieu of medical care & quarantine in contravention of health experts’ recommendations.
• Despite the known harms of even the shortest periods of time in solitary, New York State regularly holds people - disproportionately Black people and other People of Color - in solitary for months, years, and decades. New York’s use of solitary confinement actually increased after Governor Cuomo claimed to have implemented reforms in 2015, with more than 38,000 solitary sentences in 2018 and 81% of people in solitary being Black and/or Latinx.
• While Governor Cuomo has put forward proposed regulations on solitary confinement, an analysis shows these regulations will continue to allow people to be held in solitary for months and years, including for minor infractions.

Learn more at www.nycaic.org.