KINGSTON: The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act (HALT) was enacted on March 31, 2021to place restrictions on the use, duration, and circumstances of solitary confinement as punishment for misbehavior. According to the State’s Inspector General report, the law was partially inspired by the United Nations’s Nelson Mandela Rules, which centers the following principle:

All prisoners shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings. No prisoner shall be subjected to, and all prisoners shall be protected from, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, for which no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification. The safety and security of prisoners, staff, service providers and visitors shall be ensured at all times.

Specifically, the HALT law doesn't allow anyone over 55 years old or under 21 or pregnant or disabled to be in solitary confinement, limits solitary confinement to 3 consecutive days, or 6 days in any 30-day period, with exceptions for conduct that are considered heinous or destructive, in which case, the limit is 15 consecutive days, or 20 days in any 60-day period. Repeal of HALT is one of the primary demands of the correctional officers’ strike.

“As someone who firmly believes in the right of all workers to strike, and as a cosponsor of a bill to repeal the Taylor Law and allow public sector workers to strike,” said Assemblymember Shrestha, “I find the ongoing correctional officers’ unauthorized strike to have little to do with the rights of workers and everything to do with distracting from the increased scrutiny correctional officers are under, not only due to the recent lynching of Robert Brooks at the hands of such officers, but also due to ongoing and horrific violations inside prisons that we legislators have long been aware of—conditions so bad that our constituents who have a family members in prison often ask us not to intervene, since retaliation would be more or less guaranteed if we did.

The strike comes almost fouryears after the HALT Act went into effect, and it comes at a time when the legislature is in the midst of passing laws that would strengthen the oversight of correctional officers, and, more importantly, a day before the unsealing of indictments charging officers with Brooks’ murder. We are right to find the timing suspect, and we are right to find the demand to repeal the HALT law to be in bad faith, given that the law already allows people to be locked in their cells if it’s deemed necessary during a facility-wide emergency. The assertion that unregulated solitary confinement, including that of the elderly, the pregnant, the young, and the disabled, is a necessary condition to keep correctional officers safe is a non-starter.

While it’s always encouraging to see workers come together to strike, and while the economic and overtime conditions for correctional officers are not ideal for any job sector, the demands and the timing indicate that this strike is a strategic move to uphold a racist and anti-poor carceral system, and to infringe on the separation of powers, given that DOCCS does not have the authority to unilaterally suspend part of any duly enacted law, including the HALT law.

The fact is, we have learned that since the National Guard stepped in, all types of violent incidents have plummeted inside these prisons, and that families are getting better treatment, indicating that prior conditions were driven more by recklessness than by necessity. The disruption in not being able to access medicine and other forms of care as a result of the strike has already put many lives at risk—a 61-year-old has already died.

I welcome the Governor’s 30-day amendment to authorize the closure of up to five state prisons over the next year. Creating upstate prisons is not how we should be creating jobs in the region. I also look forward to passing bills like Treatment Not Jail so that our criminal justice system actually works towards repair, and not toward an unjust cycle of systemic violence.”

AM Shrestha is a cosponsor of the bill to repeal the Taylor Law, which would allow public sector workers to go on a strike, and is among the 52 state legislators have also signed a letter calling for the closure of the Marcy Correctional Facility, where Robert Brooks was murdered, citing a pattern of systemic brutal and violent staff behavior recorded over a number of years.