| New York’s prison guards have railed against the solitary confinement law, |
| By Chris Gelardi, NYFOCUS.com |
| The New York state prison system is teetering on disaster as guards have staged an unsanctioned wildcat strike at almost all of its 42 facilities. Governor Kathy Hochul has deployed the National Guard and, on Wednesday, obtained a court order mandating that corrections officers return to work.The guards will likely stick to their guns on pay and staffing issues. They also appear resolute on one of their most ambitious demands: repealing a four-year-old solitary confinement reform law. That would likely require action by the slow-moving and relatively progressive state legislature, though both Gray and the union’s executive vice president have told New York Focus that officers are asking the governor to explore what authority she has to chip away at the law. New York’s prison guards have railed against the solitary confinement law, the 2021 Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, since its infancy. The lengthy legislation overhauled the rules surrounding carceral isolation in New York: Among other provisions, it restricted the types of people prisons and jails could send to traditional solitary confinement; limited it to 15 consecutive days (the point at which international human rights bodies deem it torture); and enumerated higher treatment standards for people whom facilities wanted to isolate for longer. |
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