By Alex Gault
Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Seven months after the strike of New York prison security staff ended, a committee tasked with recommending changes to the state law many officers say makes their job unsafe has released its recommendations for changes to the HALT Act.
Enacted in 2021, HALT — Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement — was a key point of contention for striking prison staff who walked out of correctional facilities across the state in February and March.
On Friday, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision released the end result of the HALT Committee’s work, summarized in five key points.
The committee recommends that the law be amended to expand the use of “segregated confinement,” also known as solitary, when an incarcerated person engages in sexual harassment, lewd conduct, extortion, rioting or attempted escape. The committee also recommended expanded use of solitary when an incarcerated person throws bodily fluids, feces or other biological specimens at a staff member.
The committee also recommended that state lawmakers move to undo a part of the HALT Act that prohibits the placement of an incarcerated person into a “special housing unit” for protective custody. Special housing units, established by HALT, generally serve as a punishment that restricts the required programming an incarcerated person can access. Protective custody is specifically meant to protect people at risk of violence.
The committee argues that this restriction puts an undue burden on prison staff to keep incarcerated people who are in danger safe, requiring more facility transfers.
The committee requested that lawmakers also make changes to the programming requirements for people in special housing units and permit prison staff to provide the four hours of required programming for SHU residents in a sequestered environment. They also requested that lawmakers permit prison staff to send an incarcerated person into a special housing unit for up to 15 days when they’ve committed at least three low-level misconduct violations that normally would not allow for SHU housing.
The committee also requested a change to the broader rules over confining someone to SHUs, by changing the current language that requires an incarcerated person to have committed a listed infraction and for prison staff to determine the commitment of that infraction was a serious detriment to security and regular operations. The committee members asked that the law be changed to be less subjective, and allow an incarcerated person to be sent to a special housing unit for committing a listed infraction regardless of prison staff’s determination of its effects on prison operations.
Finally, the committee requested a broad adjustment to rewards and incentives for orderly behavior; they asked that lawmakers adjust the strict restrictions on who is eligible for incentive programs and give prison staff more tools to reward good behavior.
“The goal of the HALT Committee is to provide the legislature with recommendations to enhance safety for both our staff and the incarcerated, while maintaining the core principles and intent of the HALT Act,” said DOCCS Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello III. “We believe we have achieved this goal in a way that will ultimately lead to better outcomes and safer facilities. It is my hope that the legislature considers these changes as an important evolution of the HALT Act that reflects all we have learned since its inception in March 2022 .”
The committee’s report has the support of the unions that represent those who work in the state prisons, including the Civil Service Employees Association, the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association and the Public Employees Federation.
The report got immediate pushback from the New York Legal Aid Society , a nonprofit that works to provide legal services to people in poverty. In a statement sent Friday afternoon, the society said the recommendations would undermine the basic premise of the HALT Act.
“It’s little surprise that the culmination of closed-door talks driven largely by the corrections union is a set of recommendations to give officers sweeping new discretion to use solitary more often and for less serious infractions,” the group said. “The legislature passed HALT precisely because solitary is dangerous: it inflicts lasting mental and physical harm, fuels violence, and makes prisons less safe. From the very start, DOCCS has resisted complying with HALT, and these proposals reflect yet another attempt to sidestep the Legislature’s reasoned judgment that solitary must be strictly limited in New York . This effort to undermine HALT’s crucial and hard-won limits on solitary should be rejected.”
A coalition of legal aid and advocacy groups, led by the New York Legal Action Center, focused on alternatives to incarceration and post-prison reentry programs is also opposed. The ATI/Reentry Coalition said in a statement that the recommendations from the committee should be ignored.
They argued that DOCCS has failed to effectively enforce the HALT Act as it was written, a point that left-leaning lawmakers in Albany have often made in discussions over amending the law.
They said the committee’s membership, which included no representatives for incarcerated people, legal aid or pro-reform groups, was myopic in its overview of the issue of prison safety.
“It is important not to lose sight of the full context in which these proposed amendments were developed: the illegal work stoppage by correctional officers across the state in February and March following the indictment of officers in the murder of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility; the murder of Messiah Nantwi by officers at Mid-State Correctional Facility in March and the subsequent attempted cover up; and the suspension of programming and visitation, which, to this day, have only been partially restored,” the group’s statement reads. “We urge our elected officials to reject this process and to keep at the forefront the urgent need to ensure safe and humane conditions for incarcerated New Yorkers, including robust programming, full access to visitation, and fair and timely releases.”
The committee’s recommendations have been sent to Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul’s office and the state legislature for review. Legislators will return to Albany in early January for another legislative session, where discussion of this report is likely to be raised.
Do you believe expanding the use of segregated confinement for serious infractions would make correctional facilities safer for staff and inmates?
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