Dear Governor Hochul and Commissioner Martuscello,

We, the undersigned organizations, demand that you immediately reverse the illegal purported suspension of the HALT Solitary Confinement Law and instead fully and effectively implement it. Despite DOCCS doubling down on its attempts to suspend HALT, nothing in the HALT Solitary Law authorizes a suspension of any parts of the law. Carrying out this "suspension" directly violates the HALT Solitary Law, illegally usurps the lawmaking function of the state legislature, and causes grave harm and likely death.

Solitary confinement is torture. It inflicts immense suffering, devastating harm, and too often death. Studies show that people in solitary are between six and 12 times more likely to engage in acts of self-harm or die by suicide. Solitary is disproportionately inflicted on Black and Latinx people. Solitary confinement also worsens safety for everyone by causing people to deteriorate physically, mentally, and emotionally. At the same time, true alternatives to solitary – involving full days of meaningful out-of-cell human engagement and programming – have been proven to reduce violence and better protect people’s health and safety.

Recognizing that longstanding evidence, supermajorities of both houses of New York State’s legislature passed the HALT Solitary Law and your predecessor Governor signed it into law. HALT Solitary is the law of New York State and DOCCS does not have the authority to push it aside. 

It is particularly egregious that DOCCS has taken this unlawful step seemingly as a capitulation to the demands of officers who illegally carried out a statewide work stoppage that put tens of thousands of New Yorkers’ lives at risk by resulting in massive lockdowns and limited or no access to family visits, food, medications, medical and mental health care, programming, out-of-cell time, parole board hearings and more. It has been reported that at least 12 people died while nearly the entire prison system was locked down in solitary because of the illegal work stoppage. It is also particularly egregious that DOCCS has taken this unlawful step after the world watched 17 DOCCS staff – officers, sergeants, and medical providers – brutally beat Robert Brooks to death and less than three months later officers reportedly brutally beat Messiah Nantwi to death.

Beyond ending the illegal purported suspension, DOCCS must fully and effectively implement the HALT Solitary Law. DOCCS has been systematically violating the HALT Solitary Law since it went into effect, continuing to lock people in solitary confinement by another name for months and years at a time. Among other violations, DOCCS has been illegally locking people with disabilities in solitary, illegally sending people to solitary and alternatives for reasons prohibited under the law, illegally denying people access to the seven hours of daily group out-of-cell time required in purported alternatives, illegally claiming that locking someone alone in a tiny recreation balcony in the back of their cell is “out-of-cell” and “congregate out-of-cell” time, and illegally failing to utilize the mechanisms of release from alternatives while imposing extreme sentences to solitary, thereby warehousing people in units that are solitary by another name for months and years at a time.

Enough is enough. DOCCS is not above the law, and must implement all components of the HALT Solitary Law. In addition to reversing all of the violations above, DOCCS must expand the use of community-led and peer-led programs in alternatives to solitary, such as the proven M.A.N. Program. DOCCS must also bring in outside experts, such as Dr. Bandy Lee and Dr. James Gilligan, and provide them full autonomy to design and operate units in a manner akin to the original RSVP Program or the former Merle Cooper Program, which involved full days of out-of-cell group programming and engagement and saw positive impacts on safety for everyone.

In addition to fully implementing the HALT Solitary Law, we urge you to release people who are incarcerated through expansive use of executive clemency and medical parole, starting with those who are elderly and most vulnerable; restore full family visits at all facilities; end all lockdowns; stop all officer brutality, sexual violence, and other abuse; reverse the family care package ban; and support legislation that will create meaningful pathways of release from New York’s prisons and fundamentally transform the environment within New York’s prisons, including Elder Parole Bill (S454/A514) and Fair & Timely Parole (S307/A162); the Second Look Act (S.158/A.1283), Earned Time Act (S.342/A.1085), and Marvin Mayfield Act (S.1209/A.1297); Rights Behind Bars (S3763/A1261A); and Ending Qualified Immunity (S176/A1402).

Sincerely,