[The HALT Act was passed to end long-term solitary confinement.
Enforcing it is a whole new struggle.]
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THE NEW YORK LAW EVERYONE IS WATCHING  
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Victoria Law
May 4, 2023
The Nation
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_ The HALT Act was passed to end long-term solitary confinement.
Enforcing it is a whole new struggle. _

A prisoner is shackled while attending a class for mental health in
the Short-Term Restricted Housing Unit at California State Prison,
Sacramento. The unit is for prisoners in segregated or solitary
confinement., Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

 

This story was published with Solitary Watch
[[link removed]], a nonprofit watchdog group that
investigates, documents, and disseminates information on the use of
solitary confinement in US prisons and jails.

One year after New York’s HALT Solitary Confinement Act took effect,
incarcerated people and advocates have filed suit against the
Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) for
failing to comply with the law.

In 2021, after nearly a decade of advocacy efforts, state lawmakers
passed Correctional Law § 137
[[link removed]], better known as
the HALT Solitary Confinement Act. HALT limits solitary confinement to
15 consecutive days or 20 days within a 60-day period. If a person’s
punitive sentence exceeds 15 days, the person must be transferred to a
Residential Rehabilitation Unit (RRU), which is supposed to provide
more out-of-cell time and group programs. The HALT law also bans even
short-term solitary for people with serious mental illness and other
vulnerable groups.

If fully implemented, the HALT Solitary law would transform its prison
system and free thousands of incarcerated people from torturous
isolation. But prisons are highly change-resistant institutions, and
implementation of the law may present an even bigger challenge than
its passage. (A similar law in New Jersey
[[link removed]] has yet to be
implemented.)

What happens in New York may have national impact, since the HALT law
has become a model for advocates seeking to limit the use of solitary
in their states. Within the past two years, eight other states
[[link removed]] have introduced
similar legislation to limit solitary to no more than 15 days. They
are often called “Mandela bills” after former political prisoner
and South African president Nelson Mandela, who spent 18 years in
solitary confinement, which he described as “the most forbidding
aspect of prison life.” The United Nations adopted the Mandela
Rules
[[link removed]] for
the treatment of incarcerated people in 2015. These rules recommended
that solitary be used as a last resort, not a first response. Two
months after New York passed HALT, Connecticut became the third state
to legislate limits on time in isolation
[[link removed]].

Because New York’s law went into effect on March 1, 2022, a lot is
riding on whether it succeeds or fails. “Everyone’s watching what
happens in New York,” Jessica Sandoval, director of the Unlock the
Box campaign, told _Solitary Watch _and _The Nation_. “Failure
would discourage others from imagining something different, or trying
to draft or even get a sponsor in a regressive state legislature,”
Sandoval added, noting how other states used HALT to drum up support
for similar bills.

So far, advocates and currently and formerly incarcerated people say
there has been a serious discrepancy between the law’s passage and
its implementation. As more information emerges, including personal
accounts from incarcerated people, advocates are learning that
continued vigilance is needed. “HALT is in the implementation
process,” said Sandoval. “We will continue to watch and make the
necessary moves to right any wrongdoing.”

HALT places strict limits on the acts that allow prison officials to
isolate a person for more than three consecutive days or six days
within a 30-day period. Those acts are limited to causing or
attempting to cause serious injury; compelling another person into a
sexual act; extortion; coercing a person to violate prison rules;
leading, organizing, inciting or attempting to incite a riot,
insurrection or other major disturbance; procuring dangerous
contraband; or escaping.

Luis Garcia hasn’t committed any of those serious acts, yet he has
already spent over 40 days in isolation. In September 2022, Garcia, a
40-year-old with mental illness, was incarcerated in the Residential
Mental Housing Unit (RMHU), a unit for people with serious mental
illness jointly operated by the DOCCS and the state’s Office of
Mental Health. According to officers, while in his cell, he threw an
“unknown brown feces smelling liquid” that hit two officers. They
both filed misbehavior reports charging two counts of assault on staff
and two counts of an unhygienic act. He was transferred to another
prison, where he was placed on suicide watch. The hearing about these
tickets took place without him.

In October, a prison hearing officer found Garcia guilty of all
charges and sentenced him to 730 days in the Special Housing Unit
(SHU)—the prison’s punitive segregation unit. The officer’s
written disposition of the case did not include a determination that
Garcia’s alleged conduct was “so heinous or destructive that
placement of the individual in general population housing creates a
significant risk of imminent serious physical injury to staff or other
incarcerated persons, and creates an unreasonable risk to the security
of the facility,” as outlined in the law.

Because of his mental health status, Garcia is serving his SHU
sentence in another RMHU. Those who have previously been confined
there call these units “solitary by another name
[[link removed]].”

Garcia’s not the only one in extended segregation for an act not
listed under the new law. In the six months after HALT took effect,
prison staff issued more than 6,500 tickets
[[link removed]] that
led to SHU sentences. Nearly 1,200 were for acts that did not meet the
actions specified by the law. Two-thirds were for actions that may not
have met the criteria.

As of April 1, 2023
[[link removed]],
the DOCCS confined 359 people in the SHU; 68 had been in the SHU for
over 15 days. The DOCCS confined another 1,829 in the RRU; 1,407 had
been there for over 15 days.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a 
[[link removed]]lawsuit
[[link removed]] (_Fields
v. Annucci) _on April 5 challenging the DOCCS’s use of extended
segregation, or placement in solitary (including both the SHU and the
RRU) for more than the three-day limit. The NYCLU named Garcia and
Fuquan Fields, who was sentenced to 180 days in the SHU, as plaintiffs
in the suit. The complaint charges that the DOCCS continues to subject
hundreds of people to SHU sentences of more than three days for acts
that are not explicitly listed by the law. They are seeking
class-action status, which would encompass all state prisoners who
have been or will in the future be placed in segregation for more than
three consecutive days or six days within any 60-day period.

As of April 1, 2023
[[link removed]],
the DOCCS confined 359 people in the SHU; 68 had been in the SHU for
over 15 days. The DOCCS confined another 1,829 in the RRU; 1,407 had
been there for over 15 days.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a 
[[link removed]]lawsuit
[[link removed]] (_Fields
v. Annucci) _on April 5 challenging the DOCCS’s use of extended
segregation, or placement in solitary (including both the SHU and the
RRU) for more than the three-day limit. The NYCLU named Garcia and
Fuquan Fields, who was sentenced to 180 days in the SHU, as plaintiffs
in the suit. The complaint charges that the DOCCS continues to subject
hundreds of people to SHU sentences of more than three days for acts
that are not explicitly listed by the law. They are seeking
class-action status, which would encompass all state prisoners who
have been or will in the future be placed in segregation for more than
three consecutive days or six days within any 60-day period.

“I have so much time in there that sometimes it feels like I’m
never going to get out,” Garcia said in a statement
[[link removed]] about
the lawsuit. “Under the HALT Act, DOCCS shouldn’t be treating me
this way. I want DOCCS to stop acting like it is above the law.”

“Our lawsuit is asking for something quite simple, which is that
DOCCS follow the law that our state legislature has passed,” Antony
Gemmell, NYCLU’s director of detention and lead counsel, told _The
Nation _and _Solitary Watch_.

DOCCS press officer Thomas Mailey said that the agency does not
comment on pending litigation.

The _Fields_ lawsuit focuses on the DOCCS’s classification of
rules violations that have sent people to solitary confinement. But
advocates, including currently incarcerated people, say that this is
just one of many ways in which New York prisons are failing to
implement HALT.

The law requires that those sentenced to more than 15 days in
segregation be transferred to the RRU if two criteria are met—that
their punitive sentence exceeds 20 days and that the DOCCS has
established that the person committed one of the acts listed by the
statute. But, says Gemmell, “DOCCS is taking an incredibly broad
approach and essentially treating all Tier 3 violations as qualifying
[for extended segregation].” Tier 3 violations can range from a
physical assault to spitting water or throwing paper at an officer.
“DOCCS is saying these are included in the sorts of conduct that is
so heinous and destructive that it should warrant extended
segregation. That is simply not what the law provides,” Gemmell
said.

The statute also dictates that those in the RRU be offered a daily
minimum of six hours of programming, services, treatment, meals and
activities with other people, and at least one additional hour of
recreation. It also dictates that those in the RRU have access to all
of their personal property unless staff determine, on a case-by-case
basis, that having a specific item is a security risk.

But numerous people have told _The Nation _and _Solitary
Watch _that that hasn’t been their experience in the RRU. As
I reported previously
[[link removed]],
Robert Adams was transferred to the RRU in March 2022 after a fight
with another incarcerated man and an alleged assault on staff. (Adams
maintains that the officer assaulted him after he had been handcuffed
and that the assault charge was written to cover up the officer’s
attack.)

On weekday mornings, the back door of his cell was automatically
opened, allowing him to step into an adjoining outdoor pen for one
hour of recreation. Later that morning, he was offered the opportunity
to attend a program with eight to ten other men. During the three-hour
program, their feet were shackled to the floor beneath their desks. In
the afternoon, he was offered what’s called “therapeutic rec” in
which men are brought to the day room, shackled to the floor, and
allowed to watch three hours of television and movies together.
Otherwise, he spent most of his day alone in his cell.

Lee Doane was sent to the RRU in September 2022. He told _Solitary
Watch _and _The Nation_ that he had covered the window of his cell
door while using the toilet. When staff repeatedly demanded that he
remove the covering, Doane cursed at them and threw a roll of toilet
paper. He was charged with creating a disturbance, harassment,
refusing a direct order, threats, visibility obstruction, violent
conduct, and an unhygienic act, and sentenced to one year in
segregation.

Doane spent 21 days in the SHU before being transferred to an RRU at
Upstate Correctional Facility. Others around him had spent as long as
40 days in the SHU. Despite prison rules dictating that he be given
his property within 72 hours, Doane waited another seven days for his
belongings. “Seven days just sitting in this cell with nothing was
pretty boring,” he wrote in a letter. But he feared that pressing
the issue would result in the withholding of his property for even
longer.

This practice isn’t limited to Upstate. A man at Auburn Correctional
Facility wrote _Solitary Watch _and _The Nation _to say that when
incarcerated men are sent to the SHU, staff tasked with packing their
belongings typically omit items, sometimes as much as one-third of
their property. Adams, too, said that he was not given his property
for 60 days after arriving at the RRU.

At Upstate, Doane eschewed the morning program, which he also
characterized as being chained to a classroom desk. Unlike Adams, who
had been allowed into the outdoor pen once each day, Doane’s back
door was opened three times each day, allowing him to step into a
12-by-12 concrete and steel enclosure. “So they legally abided by
the dictates of the HALT Law by providing you with seven hours
‘technically’ out of your cell,” he wrote. Once a week, he was
allowed to submit a library request slip for no more than two books
and one magazine. Often, he received books on topics far from what he
had requested.

Advocates with the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated
Confinement rally outside Governor’s Mario Cuomo’s office in
December 2018. (Photo: Victoria Law)

Incarcerated people are not the only ones to question the programming
offered at RRUs. In a recent report, the Correctional Association of
New York, an independent prison monitoring nonprofit, reported that
staff at Upstate Correctional Facility, built as a supermax
prison, questioned the DOCCS’s decision
[[link removed]] to
build a 550-bed RRU there rather than at prisons that already had
programs, including dedicated program staff and space. The rural town
of Malone is near the Canadian border, making it more difficult for
the prison to find licensed psychologists, social workers, teachers,
and other therapeutic staff.

Other prison staff questioned the decision to build classrooms in the
basement storage area, which seemed more like a dungeon than a
rehabilitative programming space.

Furthermore, prison staff can—and do—issue tickets to people in
the RRU, which extend their time in isolation. Over half of the people
that the Correctional Association interviewed at the Upstate RRU and
over 41 percent at the RRU at Coxsackie Correctional Facility reported
that staff had given them additional disciplinary tickets.

In an e-mail response, DOCCS spokesperson Thomas Mailey wrote, “All
incarcerated individuals in RRUs are offered, but not obligated to
take, the designated amount of out-of-cell time each day; there have
been no grievances filed relating to lack of out-of-cell time.”

“The number one goal
[[link removed]] of the Department is to
create and maintain an atmosphere where all incarcerated individuals,
parolees, staff, volunteers and visitors feel secure,” his e-mail
continued. “To that end, any decision to implement new policies is
not made arbitrarily, nor is it taken lightly. Safety measures are
never used as punishment or retaliation. RRU reviews are completed at
least every 60 days. At the time of placement into an RRU, an
individual is provided with a treatment and programming plan outlining
the expectations of what they are to complete while in the unit. If an
individual has not met the expectations for discharge after 60 days,
the plan is modified to reflect current expectations and how to
achieve them.”

Jessica Sandoval of Unlock the Box reminded us that the new law has
been in effect for just over a year. “We have to give this a
significant amount of time to be implemented properly,” she
cautioned. “New York is better off with what is happening—even
with problems in implementation—than they ever would have been
without it.”

The prison systems in Colorado
[[link removed]] and North
Dakota
[[link removed]] implemented
significant policy changes to solitary, and Sandoval noted that, over
time, violence decreased and officers themselves reported better
health outcomes, better wellness, and more job satisfaction. But these
outcomes weren’t immediate even in relatively small systems.

New York, which has nearly 32,000 state prisoners, has a much larger
system than Colorado’ (with a prison population of fewer than
17,000) or North Dakota’s (with 1,788 prisoners).

For its part, the _Fields_ suit asks the court to annul the
DOCCS’s extended segregation policy and require the agency to comply
with the law’s confinement criteria.

“If the confinement criteria are actually implemented, there will be
fewer people confined and all of those other issues related to
confinement will shrink because the population subject to it will be
much smaller,” Jim Bogin, senior supervising attorney of
Prisoners’ Legal Services and cocounsel in the _Fields _suit, told
us. “The way the statutory criteria is written, only the most
egregious acts permit confinement. But DOCCS has determined
administratively that anything on their list of Tier III confinement
is deemed to be satisfying the HALT criteria.”

“DOCCS does not have to use segregation the way it does,” Gemmell
added. “There are states in this country
[[link removed]] and countries
across the world
[[link removed].] where
prison systems operate without imposing extended segregation on
people. And there’s no real reason that DOCCS needs to be operating
the way it does.”

_Copyright c 2023 The Nation. Reprinted with permission. May not be
reprinted without permission
[[link removed]].
Distributed by PARS International Corp
[[link removed]]._

_VICTORIA LAW is a freelance journalist who focuses on the
intersections of incarceration, gender, and resistance. Her books
include Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women
[[link removed]], Prison By
Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms
[[link removed]] (co-authored
with Maya Schenwar), and the forthcoming “Prisons Make Us Safer”
and 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration
[[link removed]]._

_THE NATION [[link removed]] Founded by abolitionists in
1865, The Nation has chronicled the breadth and depth of political
and cultural life, from the debut of the telegraph to the rise of
Twitter, serving as a critical, independent, and progressive voice in
American journalism._

_Please support  progressive journalism. Get a digital subscription
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Nation for just $24.95!  _

* jails
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* Prisons
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* New York
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* criminal justice system
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* Solitary Confinement
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