Statement on the State of the State by Jack Davis, Member of the #HALTsolitary Campaign
Contact:
Jared Chausow - jchausow@gmail.com, 650 814 0565
***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***
STATEMENT ON THE STATE OF THE STATE
BY JACK DAVIS, MEMBER
OF THE #HALTsolitary CAMPAIGN
(NEW YORK, NY) – Jack Davis, a member of the #HALTsolitary Campaign and a survivor of solitary confinement, released the following statement on Gov. Cuomo’s failure to even acknowledge the torture of solitary confinement in State of the State.
“The Governor’s failure to take any accountability for the torture inflicted on thousands of people in solitary confinement in his prisons probably surprised no one, but it still shocks the conscience. We have a majority of legislators in both houses supporting the HALT Solitary Confinement Act and together we can get it done.
Visiting the African American History Museum in Washington D.C. this summer, I was deeply moved by the casket of Emmet Till and the long line of people of all backgrounds waiting to see it. I was thinking about his mother having an open-casket funeral so people could see what they did to her boy, the gruesome violence of racism. The same violence and racism exists today in solitary confinement, where people are mentally and physically tortured. When people die in solitary, they cover up the cause of death and sometimes don’t even tell their mothers. Other incarcerated people have to get the word to them.”
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