Agency in New York Prisons Faces Potential Contempt Order from Advocates
In a recent development, the Legal Aid Society's Prisoners' Rights Project has requested a judge to intervene and compel the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to curtail its practice of keeping incarcerated individuals confined to their cells and dorms for over 20 hours a day.
The request comes after six months of thousands of incarcerated people being subjected to such conditions, including during extreme summer heat. The ongoing dispute between advocates and the prison system over prisons' implementation of the HALT (Humane Alternatives to Long Term [solitary] Confinement) reform law has been ongoing for years.
The filing asks the court to order DOCCS to submit a new, compliant emergency declaration. The law mandates that prisons and jails offer incarcerated people a minimum number of hours outside their cell each day, but allows DOCCS to pause compliance on a facility-by-facility basis during an emergency. However, there is little indication from DOCCS about when all facilities will be able to let incarcerated people out of their cells for the law's minimum hours.
DOCCS has claimed that multiple correctional facilities are currently in a state of emergency, which has disrupted the implementation of the HALT reform requirements across the entire prison system in 2021. However, specific names of these facilities and detailed reasons for the emergency status were not found in the provided search results.
The prison system remains on pseudo-lockdown, with facilities canceling or severely shortening classes, recreation, therapeutic programming, and work release and limiting out-of-cell time to a precious few hours a day - all HALT violations absent an emergency. DOCCS has not explicitly stated which facilities are under states of emergency or when it plans to lift all the suspensions.
The court can also hold DOCCS and Commissioner Daniel Martuscello in civil contempt, which would allow the judge to impose fines or other measures to enforce compliance. Commissioner Martuscello anticipates reintroducing HALT's programming requirements by early fall.
The ongoing power struggle between DOCCS, advocates, the state legislature, the courts, and its own staff reached a new peak with Tuesday's motion. The filing is part of an ongoing lawsuit accusing the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) of declaring an overbroad emergency to suspend the requirements of the 2021 solitary confinement reform law across the entire prison system.
The prison agency has allegedly failed to fulfill the legal requirements to justify these conditions. The prison system faced nearly unprecedented scrutiny after corrections officers were caught on video killing an incarcerated man at Marcy Correctional Facility. The strike by guards, which lasted three weeks, ended with DOCCS firing roughly 2,000 guards, creating a staffing shortage.
Riley Evans, staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners' Rights Project, stated that it's not possible to tell with certainty whether DOCCS is complying with HALT in a given prison with the available information. The Legal Aid Society's request aims to bring clarity and ensure the rights of incarcerated individuals are upheld.
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