By Graham Rayman at the Daily News
May 27, 2025
A group of 55 state legislators sent a letter Tuesday to the state prisons commissioner urging
him to discontinue the poststrike suspension of elements of the HALT law limiting the use of
solitary confinement.
In the period since the prison guards strike ended in March, the legislators claim in the letter to
the commissioner, Daniel Martuscello, they have received “numerous reports — from multiple
government agencies, the courts, reporters and an independent watchdog — of systemic
violations of the HALT Law.”
“Nothing in the HALT Law allows the department to suspend portions of the law,” the letter
states. “[The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision] does not have the
authority to unilaterally suspend part of a duly enacted law and attempts to do so infringe on the
separation of powers and our legislative authority.”
In a statement, Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the department, denied the HALT Act —
Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement — was paused, and added the HALT
law and state correction law allows the agency to suspend solitary confinement rules during an
ongoing state of emergency.
“The programming elements of the HALT Act were paused for 90 days,” Mailey said in the
statement.
“During that time periodic reviews have been and will be conducted. At the end of the 90 days, a
review of staffing and operations in the 42 DOCCS correctional facilities will take place and a
decision will be made regarding the programming elements.”
The 90-day period ends in June. Under HALT, the duration of solitary confinement is capped at
15 days, and prisoners must be provided programming outside of their cells.
When the strike ended, Gov. Hochul fired roughly 2,000 guards who had refused to return to
work, exacerbating a staffing shortfall that the state claims has limited HALT-required
programming.
A second consequence of the staffing shortfall has been, according to city officials, that the
transfers of people held in the city jails who serve state prison sentences has been delayed,
contributing to a rise in the jail population.
On Wednesday, activists will hold a rally in Albany urging the Legislature to increase the
number of members of the state Commission on Correction from three to nine.
The bill, known in the Senate as S856 and the Assembly as A2315, would also require the new
members include experts in public health and behavioral health care, a public defender and
someone who previously served prison time.
Yonah Zeitz of the Katal Center for Equity, Health and Justice cited the indictments of prison
guards in the killings of prisoners Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi as motivation for the
reform.
“This is a critical moment to address correctional accountability and oversight,” he said. “For
more than 20 years the SCOC has consistently failed to meet its responsibility” to ensure jails
and prisons are safe, stable and humane.
Ten guards were charged in the Dec. 9 beating death of Brooks, 43, at the Marcy Correctional
Facility in Marcy, N.Y.
Nantwi, 22, was beaten to death March 1 at Mid-State Correctional Facility located a half-mile
from Marcy CF. Ten correction officers were charged in that case.
Mayor Eric Adams (D) said after the decision that he would follow whatever Swain ordered, but
sought to deflect blame from his own administration. “The problems at Rikers are decades in the
making. We finally got stability,” he said.
“It is a drastic and necessary measure to save lives. The independent receiver must move swiftly
and should be bound to the city’s legal mandate to shut Rikers. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Melanie Dominguez and Yonah Zeitz, co-directors of the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and
Justice, which has advocated for the rights of detainees and to shut Rikers down, criticized
Adams’ record while welcoming the judge’s decision.
“For decades, New Yorkers, including our members, have experienced the dangerous and deadly
conditions at Rikers,” they said in a statement. “Instead of following the law to shutter Rikers by
2027, Mayor Adams has worked to keep Rikers open. And during his administration, conditions
at Rikers have worsened. Nearly 40 people have died since Adams took office … Receivership is
a tool of last resort. In this instance, it is a drastic and necessary measure to save lives. The
independent receiver must move swiftly and should be bound to the city’s legal mandate to shut
Rikers. Anything less is unacceptable.”
Nearly 15 years of legal battles have preceded this move. In 2011, a group of teenagers filed suit
against the city, alleging that corrections officers severely beat them in areas of the jail shielded
from video cameras. In 2015, the city agreed to settle the case, entering a court-ordered
settlement to reform safety and use-of-force policies, install new surveillance cameras, and
appoint an independent monitor to assess the city’s progress.
The independent monitor repeatedly reported back to the court that the city was failing to
address persistent problems related to safety for incarcerated people and guards, provision of
health care and other issues. In November 2024, Judge Swain warned the city that she would
consider putting the jail under an independent receiver, finding it in contempt for failing to
implement changes on Rikers.
The 413-acre jail complex, located on the island in the East River, has a long history of abuse
and neglect. In October 2019, the New York City Council voted to close the facility by December
31, 2026. Included in that resolution was a plan to build a series of new “borough-based” jails
around the city as replacements. Mayor Adams promised while campaigning for office that he
would honor the council’s commitment to close Rikers.
But as Adams nears the end of his term, he has failed to fulfill that promise—and instead,
overseen an increase in the Rikers population, making it impossible to close the jails on the
scheduled timeline.
In March, local outlet The City reported that the jail’s population had risen to over 7,000, the
highest since 2019. It’s far above the city’s mandated targets, and the population would need to
decrease by several thousand people in order to follow the plan to transfer those who are left to
other jails. Construction of the new borough jails is also far behind schedule, and not expected to
be completed until at least 2032.