Explaining the New York State Prison Strike and the HALT Act

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Genevieve Bombard ’27*

March 6, 2025

The Government Law Center provides nonpartisan legal research and analysis on pressing issues facing state and local government and informs the public about major legal and policy issues facing policymakers and elected officials. Our role is to explain, not to advocate for a particular position or course of action.

Circumstances surrounding the statewide prison strike in New York may continue to change. This explainer is current as of the date of publication.

Background

On Monday, February 17, 2025, corrections officers at Collins Correctional Facility, Elmira Correctional Facility, and Groveland Correctional Facility refused to report to work, citing unsafe working conditions.¹ This action ignited a statewide strike of approximately 15,000 corrections officers at nearly all of the forty two prisons operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), which represents corrections officers working in DOCCS facilities, has maintained that the strike is unauthorized. Under New York’s Civil Service Law, Article 14, commonly known as the Taylor Law, “No public employee or employee organization shall engage in a strike, and no public employee or employee organization shall cause, instigate, encourage, or condone a strike.”² Under this law, corrections officers can be held liable and may be subject to removal, loss of pay, or other disciplinary actions.³

On February 27, state and NYSCOPBA leaders announced that they had reached a tentative agreement to end the strike.⁴ The tentative agreement contains provisions intended to address the demands of corrections officers and union representatives: addressing staffing shortages at DOCCS facilities, increasing pay for corrections officers, and rolling back the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act. This explainer examines the legal and policy implications of the HALT Act and its role in the discourse surrounding the statewide prison strike.

The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act

New York’s prisons and jails have historically utilized segregated confinement in Special Housing Unit (SHU) cells (commonly known as “solitary confinement”) as a routine form of disciplinary interventions for alleged misconduct by incarcerated individuals. Prior to the enactment of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act in 2021, individuals incarcerated in DOCCS facilities could be subject to segregated confinement in cells for up to 23 hours a day over any number of consecutive days, months, or years. In these circumstances, incarcerated individuals may be allowed to leave the SHU cell only to shower and for one hour of recreation. Isolation is a key characteristic of segregated confinement: it entails being completely separated from the general prison population at all times, and contact with visitors is often restricted or denied. Segregated confinement can involve sensory deprivation, lack of human interaction, and physical restrictions that can lead to deterioration of an individual’s mental health.⁵

The HALT Act was signed into law by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo on March 31, 2021. The HALT Act is the result of advocates’ and policymakers’ efforts to reduce the amount of time that incarcerated individuals may spend in segregated confinement and to prevent negative psychological, physical, developmental, and social impacts of segregated, or solitary, confinement on incarcerated individuals. The law was inspired, in part, by the United Nations’ “Nelson Mandela Rules,” which proposed standard minimum rules for the treatment of incarcerated individuals:

All [incarcerated individuals] shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings. No [incarcerated individual] shall be subjected to, and all [incarcerated individuals] shall be protected from, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, for which no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification. The safety and security of [incarcerated individuals], staff, service providers and visitors shall be ensured at all times.⁶

The HALT Act legislation cited the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, who concluded that solitary confinement of more than fifteen consecutive days can amount to torture and recommended restricting its use and prohibiting any use of solitary for vulnerable groups or for purposes of punishment.⁷

The HALT Act limits the length of time an incarcerated individual can spend in segregated confinement, restricts the criteria that can result in such confinement, provides additional procedural protections prior to such confinement, and exempts certain vulnerable groups from segregated confinement.⁸ Further, the Act requires the least restrictive environment necessary for the safety of incarcerated individuals, staff, and the security of the facility.⁹ The Act also provides alternative mechanisms to segregated confinement, such as residential rehabilitation units to be used for therapy, treatment, and rehabilitative programming for incarcerated individuals who have been determined to have a serious mental illness by a mental health clinician, or for individuals who have been determined to require more than fifteen days of segregated confinement pursuant to department proceedings.¹⁰

An exception to these rules is created if it is determined that an incarcerated individual acted in such a heinous or destructive manner and that placement of the individual in general population would create a significant, imminent risk of harm to staff or other incarcerated individuals, or if placement in general population would create an unreasonable risk to security. If an incarcerated individual poses an imminent threat, engages in sexual violence, commits acts of extortion, incites or attempts to cause a riot, obtains deadly or dangerous weapons or contraband, or attempts to escape from the facility, DOCCS staff may place that person in segregated confinement beyond the limits of the HALT Act.¹¹ The Act thus requires state prisons to use disciplinary interventions such as segregated confinement as a last resort.¹²

The HALT Act has led to an overall reduction in the use of Special Housing Units (SHU) and a reduction in the amount of time incarcerated individuals are subject to segregated confinement.¹³ Some incarcerated individuals who had spent years or decades in SHU have been moved to alternative units (e.g. residential rehabilitation units) or to the general population, which has helped to ensure access to out-of-cell programming and engagement.¹⁴ Since its enactment, corrections officers and union representatives have said that the HALT Act’s restrictions on segregated confinement leads to a lack of consequences and punishments in prisons for incarcerated individuals, making it more unsafe for workers than it was prior to enactment of the law.¹⁵ State Senator Daniel Stec has introduced a bill to repeal the HALT Act, asserting that violence in prisons has risen in the last ten years and that without segregated confinement as a tool, corrections officers are unable to keep the facilities safe.¹⁶ Corrections officers say that without being able to place individuals in segregated confinement, they have no means of maintaining control over the facility or enforcing consequences to deter disruptive actions.¹⁷

Advocates have alleged that state prisons have routinely violated the HALT Act.¹⁸ An inspector general report released in August 2024 determined that DOCCS had not properly implemented the HALT Act and urged the agency to modernize its recordkeeping systems to monitor prisons’ compliance with the law.¹⁹ Further, advocates continue to fight for the HALT Act, stating that the proposed reversal of the HALT Act furthers a “racist regime of torture, brutality, and death.”²⁰

A Tentative Agreement, Awaiting Conclusion

In response to the strike, DOCCS Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III released a memo temporarily suspending certain provisions of the HALT Act on February 20.²¹ The tentative agreement reached by state and union leaders on February 27 to end the strike includes a provision continuing DOCCS’s suspension of “programming elements” of the HALT Act for another 90 days. After 30 days, the agreement states that DOCCS will begin an evaluation of “operations, safety, and security” at state prisons, “on a facility-by-facility basis,” to determine whether suspended provisions can be reinstated.²²

Because the strike was not sanctioned by NYSCOPBA and has been determined to violate the state’s Taylor Law, individual corrections officers will need to make the decision to return to work. Corrections officers who reported to work before a deadline of Saturday, March 1, will not face discipline. As of March 6, 2025, a large number of corrections officers at more than 30 prisons remain on strike. Some corrections officers have been fired for refusing to return to work, and the state may begin canceling health insurance for thousands of officers who continue to strike.²³

The strike comes at a time where DOCCS faces increased scrutiny from corrections officers, advocates, and policymakers. State prison staff and NYSCOPBA representatives have raised concerns about unsafe working conditions, citing increased violence in the state’s prisons and a series of episodes in which staff have been rushed to hospitals exhibiting mysterious health symptoms, and their opposition to a reduced staffing directive from DOCCS Commissioner Martuscello issued on February 10.²⁴ Additionally, DOCCS and prison staff have faced scrutiny following the death of 43-year-old Robert Brooks, at the hands of multiple corrections officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, resulting in public outrage and protests.²⁵

During the strike, incarcerated individuals, prison staff, and advocates have raised concerns about deteriorating conditions in DOCCS facilities. Since the strike began, The Legal Aid Society has received dozens of reports from incarcerated clients across New York State about their inability to access critical medical care and essential prescriptions.²⁶ DOCCS temporarily suspended visitation rights at all DOCCS facilities, impacting both personal and legal visits for people incarcerated at the state’s forty two prisons.²⁷ While this measure has been modified, a lawsuit filed on behalf of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York (PLS) claims that PLS clients at DOCCS facilities across the state have been unable to schedule legal calls or legal visits, thus denying proper access to legal representation.²⁸ Seven individuals incarcerated in DOCCS facilities have died since the strike began, including 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi, reportedly at the hands of corrections officers at Mid-State Correctional Facility.²⁹

Cumulatively, these incidents have sparked conversations about the safety and wellbeing of incarcerated individuals and employees inside the state’s prisons and, at the same time, a perceived lack of oversight mechanisms for alleged misconduct by corrections officers. State Senate Corrections Committee Chair Senator Julia Salazar has indicated that the Legislature is unlikely to make substantive changes to the HALT Act.³⁰ However, state officials, lawmakers, and NYSCOPBA leaders continue to weigh their options to bring an end to the strike and address concerns raised by incarcerated individuals and corrections officers.³¹

Notes