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The New York Civil Liberties Union says the state’s corrections system should be found in contempt for failing to comply with a court order to properly implement state law restricting the use of solitary confinement.
The NYCLU’s filing with the state Supreme Court is the latest development in a yearslong battle with corrections officials over their refusal to comply with the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, known as HALT.
Last year the Court ruled that the New York Department of Correction and Community Supervision (DOCCS) was flouting the law’s requirement that prison officials must follow a series of steps before placing a person in solitary confinement.
Long-term solitary confinement, generally defined as more than 15 consecutive days in isolation, is used throughout the United States despite being considered a form of torture by the United Nations. The practice has caused self-harm, suicides, and mental health crises.
The law mandates that officials hold an evidentiary hearing and make a written decision that an incarcerated person has committed one or more of seven acts listed in the statute. DOCCS must also determine in writing that “based on specific objective criteria” the person’s action was “so heinous and destructive” that placing them in the general population would create a “significant risk of imminent serious physical injury” and an “unreasonable risk to facility security.”
Last year, the Court directed DOCCS to follow the law and to “review all previously issued sanctions and vacate those ‘without required specific written findings of fact and conclusions.’” However, NYCLU alleges that DOCCS has refused to follow the judge’s “clear and unequivocal order.”
“DOCCS repeatedly upheld unlawful sanctions,” NYCLU wrote to the court. “And additional evidence demonstrates that DOCCS continues to issue new sanctions in violation of HALT.”
In one incident, DOCCS sentenced a person to 120 days of solitary confinement for “smuggling” tobacco and a lighter inside, but corrections officials “did not provide any explanation for why having tobacco and a lighter would satisfy [the statute’s] ‘heinous or destructive’ standard.”
The corrections agency, NYCLU wrote, “sentenced a class member to months of unlawful confinement based solely on its foregone conclusion.”
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