MEMORANDUM OF SUPPORT

The H.A.L.T. Solitary Confinement Act

(S. 2836 – Salazar / A. 2277A – Aubry)

March 1, 2021

Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) strongly supports the Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (S. 2836/A. 2277A).

BDS provides multi-disciplinary and client-centered criminal defense, family defense, immigration, civil legal services, social work support and advocacy to nearly 30,000 indigent Brooklyn residents every year. Of this annual caseload, approximately 6,000 are incarcerated at some point during the pendency of the case and brought into the custody of the New York City Department of Correction (DOC). Those who are sentenced serve time in New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) prisons or, for sentences of a year or less, on Rikers Island. Whether in pre-trial detention or serving a sentence, our incarcerated clients may be subject to the torture of solitary confinement. New Yorkers are regularly confined in elevator-sized cells without any meaningful human interaction or access to programs for months, years and even decades with no viable due process protections—and no clear way to get out, sometimes until their prison sentence is up and they are placed on a bus back to the community.

HALT is the only bill that will end the torture of solitary for all New Yorkers, and BDS fully supports its passage. The Assembly passed HALT in 2018 and a majority of Assembly Members and State Senators support HALT. The Legislature must pass HALT to address the existing human rights crisis. 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 prisons in 2018. Likewise, after Governor Cuomo promised yet another overhaul in 2019 with administrative regulations, his actual proposal amounted to a distraction, allowing people to continue to suffer in solitary for years at a time, and this brutal and racist practice continues today.

Decades of social science research have demonstrated that solitary confinement causes immense harm to marginalized individuals, families, communities, correctional staff and others, all with no public safety benefits. Indeed, more than 40% of all suicides in New York State prisons in 2014 and 2015 occurred in solitary confinement, though approximately 9% of the prison population was confined there. Shockingly, many New Yorkers who attempt suicide while incarcerated are subsequently punished with additional time in ‘the Box.’ We must end this torture and replace it with humane and effective alternatives.

Public defenders and our social work staff have a unique perspective on solitary confinement, as we see our clients in isolation decompensate in successive meetings and court appearances, losing the ability to participate in their own defense. At the very least, the extreme anguish only increases the pressure to plead guilty that is inherent to pre-trial detention, regardless of guilt or innocence.

Corrections officials across the country are recognizing what incarcerated people and their families have said for decades: Solitary confinement does not make us safer.1 It does not address the root causes of any problematic behavior and often exacerbates them, particularly for those with mental health issues. Moreover, because it is most often used for minor, non-violent infractions, time in solitary confinement can create violent behaviors where none previously existed. Crucially, reductions in solitary elsewhere have a direct impact on reducing violence.

For example, Mississippi, working with the National Institute of Corrections, reduced its solitary population by more than 75%, resulting in a 50% reduction in prison violence.2 The President of the correction officers’ union chapter in Huntsville, Texas told the New York Times that solitary confinement is ineffective, saying, “We really need to focus a lot more on behavior modification and giving officers more tools to manage these prison populations. When you take everything away from prisoners, you have nothing to manage them with. And they can become very dangerous when they have nothing to lose.”³ Certainly, there are individuals who might need to be separated for a time, but that does not require them to be tortured, and that separation must have a reasonable expiration.

The HALT Solitary Confinement Act would address the racially discriminatory disciplinary system, end the torture of long-term solitary confinement beyond 15 days for all people, and create more humane and effective alternatives. HALT would require that any person separated from the general prison population for more than 15 consecutive days be placed in an alternative secure rehabilitative and therapeutic unit. HALT also restricts the criteria that can result in isolation, bars vulnerable populations from being placed in isolation for any period, enhances staff training, and provides for procedural protections and outside oversight.

New York has the opportunity to become a model for humane and effective change, while making our prisons, jails, and communities safer. Please support to the HALT Solitary Confinement Act.

¹ E.g., Raemisch, Rick. "My Night in Solitary." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

² U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Durbin Statement on Federal Bureau of Prisons Assessment of Its Solitary Confinement Practices (2013).

³ Fortin, Jacey. "Report Compares Texas’ Solitary Confinement Policies To Torture". www.nytimes.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 18 May 2017.