**PRESS ADVISORY**

[Updated to include legislators]

Contact:

Andrea O Suilleabhain, andrea@ppgbuffalo.org, 716-464-2703‬

Jared Chausow, jchausow@gmail.com, 650 814 0565

AMID MASSIVE STATE BUDGET DEFICITS, NY THINK TANK TO RELEASE NEW REPORT “SAVE MONEY, SAVE LIVES” FINDING HALT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT BILL WOULD SAVE $132 MILLION ANNUALLY

AT VIRTUAL PRESS CONFERENCE, ADVOCATES AND LEGISLATORS WILL HIGHLIGHT MORAL AND FISCAL URGENCY OF PASSING THE HALT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT ACT

WHEN: Today (Nov. 30) at 9:30am

WHERE: On Zoom - Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwoc-msqD4rGdCVJO5PX3iKZjJjVuCcL5SI

WHO: Partnership for the Public Good, survivors of solitary confinement with the #HALTsolitary Campaign, NYS Senate Correction Committee Chair Luis Sepúlveda, Erie County Legislature Majority Leader April Baskin, NYS Assembly Member Harvey Epstein, and other legislators.

WHAT: Press conference announcing the release of a new report “Save Money, Save Lives” by the Buffalo-based think tank Partnership for the Public Good. Speakers will explain why passing the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act is both a fiscally and morally urgent response to the massive budget deficits and uprisings for racial justice.

BACKGROUND:

• SAVE MONEY, SAVE LIVES, a new report by the Partnership for Public Good to be released at the virtual press conference, finds that the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (S.1623/A.2500) would save New York State and local governments an estimated $132 million dollars annually, or $1.3 billion dollars over 10 years.

• In New York State, a majority of state lawmakers support passage of HALT, which would restrict the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails in line with international human rights standards.

• Several local legislatures have also endorsed the bill, including Erie County.

• Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has stated that the bill would be too expensive to implement, supposedly costing over $1 billion dollars. The fiscal analysis in this report shows that the opposite is true, namely that the bill would save tens of millions of dollars every year.

• During the current pandemic, the harm and spread of the virus has been exacerbated by the failure to release vulnerable 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• A snapshot of the population in solitary confinement in New York State prisons in October of 2019 found 81% of people in solitary were Black and/or Latinx, disproportionate relative to the prison population at large and especially disproportionate the state's overall population.

• 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.

• 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. Also, DOCCS allowed these draft regulations to expire before taking effect.