DOCCS proposes revisions to HALT Act solitary confinement rules

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — In the wake of an unauthorized strike by correction officers earlier this year, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and several unions published recommendations to amend the state’s Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act. DOCCS said that their proposals would improve safety for both staff and people who are incarcerated.

James Miller from the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, the correction officers’ union, said, “We were pleased to participate and look forward towards achieving the recommendations the committee has submitted to the Governor and State Legislature.”

The HALT Committee—formed in March 2025 through an agreement with NYSCOPBA—drafted the unanimous recommendations after five months of meetings. Their amendments would adjust limitations in the HALT Act, changing the criteria and consequences for serious offenses.

They proposed clarifying that sexual harassment, lewd conduct, and unhygienic acts like throwing bodily fluids are eligible for segregated confinement, and changing limits for offenses like rioting or escaping. They also recommended allowing temporary placement in a Special Housing Unit for protective custody for up to three days if there is an immediate safety risk.

The committee further suggested giving DOCCS more flexibility to provide out-of-cell time for people who commit new offenses in disciplinary housing, and they also recommended more flexibility for using segregated confinement. They want to allow up to 15 days in a SHU or Residential Rehabilitation Unit for repeat misconduct, and to redefine “violent felony act” to align with state penal law. Finally, they would change incentive programs to let more of the incarcerated benefit.

The HALT Act took effect in March 2022, restricting solitary or segregated confinement—keeping a person in a cell for more than 17 hours a day—to no more than 15 consecutive days or 20 days within a 60-day period. It also requires at least four hours of out-of-cell programming per day, including an hour for recreation, even for those in segregated confinement.

HALT has faced pushback from law enforcement since inception. “The HALT Act has been a dangerous failure since its implementation,” said Republican Assemblymember Phil Palmesano, a member of the Committee on Correction who wants to see it repealed. “This is well documented by the record-level increase of inmate assaults on staff and other inmates, as well as the record-high increase of contraband seizures year after year. I urge the governor and my colleagues in the Legislature to approve these changes.”

The original law allowed exceptions for facility-wide emergencies, which DOCCS cited to suspend the act during the correction officers’ strike. But a federal judge ruled that the suspension violated the separation of powers and ordered DOCCS to comply.

The committee included representatives from DOCCS, the Office of Employee Relations, the Division of Criminal Justice Services, and the employee unions the Civil Service Employees Association, Council 82, and the Public Employees Federation. Union leaders expressed support.

CSEA President Mary E. Sullivan said the modifications were thoughtfully developed and represent “an important step forward in protecting the health and safety of incarcerated individuals and staff.”

Council 82 President Russell Fox called the recommendations a “clear example of how meaningful and effective reform can happen when all stakeholders have a seat at the table.”

PEF President Wayne Spence said the recommendations “reflect common sense solutions to address persistent and dangerous situations being caused by just a relatively few bad actors.”

And, “The proposed HALT Act modifications put forward by this committee represent an opportunity for comprehensive and common-sense initiatives that can create a safer environment for those who work in correctional facilities and those who are incarcerated there,” said Republican State Senator Rob Rolison, the ranking member of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections. “These recommended policy changes can and should be carefully reviewed and discussed by myself and my colleagues in the State Legislature.”

But the recommendations faced opposition from advocates like Democratic State Senator Julia Salazar, Chair of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections and author of the HALT Act. Her tone was less conciliatory than that of her counterpart, Rolison.

“New York will never return to the practice of torturing people through the use of solitary confinement. The safety of staff and incarcerated individuals in jails and prisons are inextricably linked,” she said. “The courts have ruled that DOCCS has no legal basis or factual reasoning for not implementing it. We need the law to finally be properly implemented and followed.”

Advocates like the HALT Solitary Campaign called the committee illegitimate for excluding those most affected by solitary confinement, like people who have been through it or their loved ones. These critics said the recommendations would gut HALT, expand solitary, and make detention facilities more dangerous instead of reckoning with the deaths of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi.

Naila Awan, co-director of policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union, described the committee as “an affront to incarcerated New Yorkers” and “an antidemocratic effort to subvert voters’ will.”

And, “DOCCS is not a lawmaker,” added Bernadette Rabuy, policy counsel at the NYCLU. “The agency cannot just defy a law it doesn’t like and has steadfastly refused to implement.”

And Antony Gemmell from the Legal Aid Society, an advocacy group for the incarcerated, argued that DOCCS “never faithfully implemented” HALT to begin with, and now they’re trying to “dismantle the law altogether.”

Anthony Dixon, Deputy Director of the Parole Preparation Project, argued that the strike was “intentionally orchestrated to distract from increased scrutiny of prison abuses.”

In a recent court case, a federal judge in Syracuse ordered DOCCS to provide specific out-of-cell time and programming at the Residential Mental Health Unit at Marcy Correctional Facility as part of a lawsuit filed by eight named plaintiffs. That lawsuit connected conditions to the correction officers’ strike, pointing out how DOCCS suspended most out-of-cell options and mental health treatments when the strike started. NYSCOPBA leaders never officially endorsed the 22-day strike.

Strikers cited forced overtime, low staffing, and problems with HALT Act enforcement as reasons for the walkout. Governor Kathy Hochul and other officials declared it an illegal violation of the Taylor Law prohibiting public employees from striking.

In response to the walkout, Hochul and DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello suspended HALT for 90 days, supposed to end on June 6. came under fire from the Legal Aid Society, which claimed in a lawsuit that the department ignored a court order to provide details and justification for the suspension. In a letter to a judge, the Legal Aid Society also raised concerns about an emergency exception to the HALT Act that sidesteps its requirements.

But according to a report from the Legal Aid Society, the strike created inhumane conditions inside prisons. The report, which featured firsthand accounts from incarcerated people, alleged food shortages, a lack of medical care, and restrictions on showers.

In that report, one individual at Marcy echoed Dixon, saying that some prisoners believe the strikers “don’t want to be held accountable” for what happened to Brooks, a 43-year-old Black man who died at Marcy in December 2024, one day after being beaten by facility staff. Several correction officers were charged with murder in that case.

After the strike ended, some incarcerated people reported that officers returned with hostility. As one person at Greene Correctional Facility alleged in the report, “A lot of the COs are still engaging in misconduct even with the cameras rolling.”

The Legal Aid Society’s report also stated that people in solitary were seven times likelier to die by suicide and 15 times more likely to self-harm than the rest of the prison population. That report also tallied 25 suicides in 2024, the highest rate since at least 2000, and that at least nine of those, or 36%, were in isolation units like SHUs, RRUs, and RMHUs. It also alleged that at least 12 died during the strike.