Name: HALT use of solitary confinement in NY
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HALT use of solitary confinement in NY

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As Christians throughout the world prepare to celebrate Holy Week, which commemorates our Lord’s arrest, imprisonment, sham trial, torture and execution, my heart is always close to those imprisoned right here in our home state of New York. Although the pandemic has made it impossible this past year, my practice is to visit men or women in prisons several times a year, including during Lent or Holy Week. I always tell them, “Don’t ever think that God doesn’t know what you’re going through.”The Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:3 to “remember those in prison as though you yourself were in prison with them; those who are being tortured as though you yourselves were being tortured.”In that vein, Pope Francis was following scripture when he and I am doing so today as I urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign a bill on his desk that would significantly curtail this practice. Enacting the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, which was passed by both houses of the Legislature last week, is an urgent moral necessity.Among other reforms, HALT restricts the use of solitary confinement to 15 days; implements alternative rehabilitative measures, such as residential rehabilitation units after 15 days; and prohibits solitary confinement for special populations, like people younger than 21 and older than 55, those with a disability, or pregnant women.I understand that our state prisons are home to people who have engaged in acts of violence and punishment is indeed one facet of the criminal justice system. But punishment is just one prong of our criminal justice system, along with rehabilitation, and, God willing, some level of restoration, not only for the person convicted of a crime, but for crime victims and all of society.Solitary confinement causes intense suffering and lasting harm to people’s mental and physical health and well-being. It destroys people’s minds, bodies, and souls, and is disproportionately imposed on people of color. Particularly tragic, long-term solitary confinement far too often leads to self-mutilation and death by suicide, overdose and even stress-induced natural causes like heart disease. Layleen Polanco, Kalief Browder and Benjamin van Zandt are just a few of the young New Yorkers whose lives were cut short due to the isolation and despair of this form of punishment.Experts across the globe have denounced the use of solitary confinement as torture, yet people in New York state and across the country are locked in solitary confinement for months, years and even decades.Pope Francis denounced solitary confinement as “one form of torture” because “the lack of sensory stimuli, the total impossibility of communication and the lack of contact with other human beings induce mental and physical suffering such as paranoia, anxiety, depression, weight loss, and significantly increase the suicidal tendency ... These tortures ... are a genuine surplus of pain that is added to the suffering of imprisonment.”Long-term solitary confinement also works against the purpose of improving safety, both inside our prisons and jails and in outside communities. It only exacerbates many of the issues that led to the person being put there to begin with, such as mental illness, anger or anti-social behavior. People who act out need pro-social programming and counseling, not extreme isolation and deprivation.Early in his pontificate, the entire world was moved at the sight of Pope Francis, in what has since become a Holy Thursday tradition, washing the feet of prisoners as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. It was and is his way of showing that all of us are equal in human dignity, and not even the bars of a prison cell can take that away.Read the latest Times Union opinion, perspective and letters to the editor on Mondays by signing up for our Observation Deck newsletter.Yet, here in New York, people in solitary confinement are locked in cells 22 to 23 hours per day, often fed meager portions of barely edible food, left exposed to the elements of extreme heat or extreme cold, and denied visits with those who love them. They’re even denied congregate religious services.Ultimately, solitary is a denial of the basic dignity and personhood of everyone on whom it is inflicted, which is why people of all faiths, or those with no religious faith at all, have decried this horrific treatment of fellow human beings.Enacting HALT will allow New York to take an important step toward upholding the basic human right to be free from torture and degrading treatment.The state Senate and Assembly stood up for basic human dignity by passing HALT with overwhelming majorities.I am imploring Cuomo to sign HALT into law.Cardinal Timothy Dolan is the Archbishop of New York.Read the latest Times Union opinion, perspective and letters to the editor on Mondays by signing up for our Observation Deck newsletter.

As Christians throughout the world prepare to celebrate Holy Week, which commemorates our Lord’s arrest, imprisonment, sham trial, torture and execution, my heart is always close to those imprisoned right here in our home state of New York. Although the pandemic has made it impossible this past year, my practice is to visit men or women in prisons several times a year, including during Lent or Holy Week. I always tell them, “Don’t ever think that God doesn’t know what you’re going through.”The Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:3 to “remember those in prison as though you yourself were in prison...

HALT use of solitary confinement in NY

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