Sweeping Salazar, Souffrant Forrest Bill Targets Rogue Prisons and Jails

Among the bill’s measures are amendments that would strengthen the landmark Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, many facets of which the prison system has all but ignored. The bill would also overturn bans on personalized care packages, make prison and jail phone calls free, and attempt to limit impunity for abusive corrections officers.

Yet the bill is “more than a compendium of particular problems that need to be fixed,” Salazar, who heads the Senate’s corrections committee, said in a statement. It seeks to “place the rights of incarcerated people and their families in New York” within the framework of international human rights law. To bolster its restrictions on solitary confinement, for example, it cites United Nations resolutions and international conventions that define prolonged use of the practice as torture. To underscore the importance of keeping people connected with the outside world, it cites the UN’s prisoner treatment directive, better known as the Nelson Mandela Rules.

“This legislation seeks to change the trajectory of our criminal justice system by placing human dignity at its core,” Souffrant Forrest said in a statement.

After the legislative session begins next month, the bill will be considered by Senate and Assembly committees.

The bill would also raise expectations for out-of-cell time, which HALT requires prisons and jails to offer to incarcerated people in isolation. For instance, if guards wanted to handcuff someone during their recreation or classroom time, they would first have to complete a multi-step reporting process explaining why. As New York Focus uncovered, DOCCS previously imposed a policy that required officers to shackle the hands and feet of every person in long-term isolation units while they participated in classroom-style activities, which usually last hours.

And the Rights Behind Bars legislation would establish a rigorous, court-like process — to include time limits, third-party representation, and a fact-finding process — to allow people accused of infractions to defend themselves before being sent to solitary. DOCCS has sent thousands of people accused of nonviolent or non-threatening infractions to isolation, in violation of HALT.

Meanwhile, the bill seeks to confront the officer discipline system that allows guards to abuse incarcerated people with impunity. A Marshall Project investigation from May found that DOCCS often looks the other way when incarcerated people accuse officers of abuse. And when the agency does try to discipline guards, a “blue wall” of silence, a culture of cover-ups, and a powerful union protect them from consequences. Last year, New York Focus and The Intercept exposed this system of impunity in an investigation into an alleged sexual assault at Shawangunk Correctional Facility by two guards, one of whom has a long history of complaints for physical and sexual assault.

Among other measures, the new legislation would deem all corrections staff mandatory reporters, legally requiring them — as teachers, social workers, and other professions are already required — to report abuse they observe.