Community Groups Advocate For Continuance Of HALT Act In New York State

As the debate about the HALT Act continues all over New York State, there are several questions about what should happen with the act.

Hundreds of striking Correctional Officers are demanding that Governor Hochul, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Commissioner Daniel Martuscello, and other state officials ignore the law to let correctional officers go back to how things were prior to 2022, while several members of the New York State Legislature along with tons of community activists implore Correctional Officers to stop breaking the law and return back to work.

READ MORE: New York Prison Bus Set On Fire As Strike Continues

One thing is clear: something needs to be done in our prisons as conditions are getting worse by the day.

While COs are making their voices heard about working conditions, community groups like the Center for Community Alternatives and Communities Not Cages are doing the same and are advocating for the HALT Act to remain in effect.

READ MORE: What Is The HALT Act And What Does It Do?

Thomas Gant, a Community Organizer and Activist with the Center for Community Alternatives, believes that the HALT Act isn't the underlying problem as there are ways to discipline inmates that do not include doing what the United Nations considers to be torture.

We have not only facts from an empirical standpoint, but psychological research and great information that says that long term confinement, especially of a person incarcerated, does no good. In fact, it further harms individuals when they are confined for long periods of time, and even impact staff... When a person has to be removed from general population in prison, they are given intense programs and training with the hopes of helping them to be able to be more productive when they are returned back to general population.
-Thomas Gant, Center for Community Alternatives

Several reported reasons for the strike have been given, and while COs claim the HALT Act to be chief among them, advocates point out that other, more systemic issues in our state prisons are more likely to be blamed.

So the mere fact that HALT has been implemented and trying to help to people that's been incarcerated is not the reason why prisons are unsafe. Prisons are unsafe because, officers for too long, have been able to operate hostile environments with impunity. And so New York State, our leaders, and more importantly the [citizens] who spend upwards of $3 billion a year, says that we want something different. We want bad actors and Department of Corrections held accountable if they make some some bad actions.
-Thomas Gant, Center for Community Alternatives

Mr. Gant had a lot to say about what's happening in New York's prisons. You can listen to everything he said below.