NCLEJ Statement on Suspension of HALT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 21, 2025
Contact: Patrick Fowler, Communications Strategist | fowler@nclej.org
New York, NY — Yesterday, on the day that prosecutors unsealed indictments against the corrections officers who brutally killed Robert Brooks, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) commissioner Daniel Martuscello III issued a memorandum in response to prison guards illegal work stoppage. Among other provisions, the memo purports to indefinitely suspend implementation of unspecified provisions of the Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement Act (HALT). In response, Stefen R. Short, Special Counsel at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, released the following statement:
“Since HALT was passed, the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPA) has been engaged in a reactionary campaign to, in its own words, “eliminate” the law. That campaign started with an ill-conceived federal lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed. It continued with a statewide press tour decrying HALT as built on a “lie,” characterizing incarcerated people as broadly dangerous, and decrying the legislature as careless. And now, the campaign has culminated in a strike – purportedly about broad safety concerns, but really about HALT – that has endangered the lives of thousands of incarcerated people. One of NYSCOPBA’s core demands is that its members be again permitted to torture incarcerated people by placing them in solitary confinement.
It is tragic that State authorities have acceded to NYSCOPBA’s reactionary campaign, using the strike as a pretextual justification to eliminate HALT. Not only does this suspension illegally invoke nonexistent executive authority, but it shows us who is really calling the shots our State prison system — the union and its reactionary interests. What is even more tragic is that if the State actually implemented HALT in full, rather than continuing to ignore some of its most important provisions, it would see reductions in violence and an improved work environment for staff. On that, the science and research is clear. Instead, the union and the State have spent years clinging to their power to torture people. And far too many people have suffered as a result.
Our hearts are with the incarcerated people impacted by the suspension of HALT. We call on DOCCS to reverse that suspension and we call on anti-torture activists everywhere to continue to fight the union’s years-long reactionary campaign.”
