Broadway’s Hamilton Actors,Stars and More Call for Passage of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act

#artistsforhumanrights

#HALTSolitary

#EndSolitaryTorture

#Callingallvoices

#Covid19behindbars

Nik Walker, actor and activist, said: "There are so few of us left, who truly don't have a single tether to the U.S. prison system. My own brother has been incarcerated since 2003. Crime remains punishable, but people convicted of crimes remain human. Prolonged solitary hurts all of us in the end, and I'm proud to lend my voice to any and all efforts to see it done away with.""New York State is allowing for prison practices that are viewed as torture by the U.N. We, as New Yorkers, have the responsibility to stop the abuse and pass the HALT Act Now," said Kate Whoriskey, who directed the video.

"Every day our country poisons itself by the misguided obsession with and investment in the broken system of mass incarceration. We have the largest prison population and highest per-capita incarceration rate in the entire world--to no avail. And in many of these prisons, we torture our own citizens--to no avail. Long term solitary confinement does not work. We have the data. It does not fulfill its intended purpose. And it is a morally reprehensible and inhumane practice that must be halted immediately," said Jin Ha, actor and activist.

The actors are Joshua Boone, Daniel Breaker, Jin Ha, Karen Olivo, and Nik Walker. The video was directed by Kate Whoriskey, with Tony Gerber serving as Director of Photography and Sebastian Diaz as Editor and Camera Operator.

Human Rights Defenders-Actors and Broadway Stars with roles in some of Broadway's biggest hits launched a video in which they read the devastating words of people in solitary confinement in New York's prisons. While Broadway is shuttered and as people are struggling with home confinement, New Yorkers are getting just a small glimpse of the exponentially more devastating horrors of solitary confinement. In ordinary times, the sensory deprivation, lack of normal interaction, and extreme idleness of solitary can lead to severe psychological, physical, and even neurological damage. 
More than 30% of all prison suicides in New York take place in solitary. A recent study found that people who spend time in solitary are much more likely to die upon release from prison, including because of increased rates of suicide. During this pandemic, these physical and mental health harms of solitary are greatly exacerbated and weaken people's immune systems, making them especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Meanwhile, rather than following the advice of health experts to release thousands of people from prison and ensure the health and safety of those left behind, New York is doubling down on the use of solitary, including with facility-wide lockdowns and individual placements in solitary for people who report symptoms.

The sensory deprivation, lack of normal human interaction, and extreme idleness can lead to intense suffering and severe psychological damage.

People in isolated confinement in NY State spend 22 to 24 hours a day locked in a cell the size of an elevator, alone or with one other person

Testimonies against Torture

In ordinary times, solitary itself is a public health crisis that causes immense suffering and far too often leads to heart disease, psychosis, self-mutilation, and death. Deemed torture under international standards, people in solitary are locked in a cell without meaningful human contact or programming. New Cornell research found that even a few days in solitary confinement - and even only one or two days of solitary - led to significantly heightened risk of death by accident, suicide, violence, and other causes.

#Hiphop4humanrights what are music artists saying?

WHAT'S the word on YouTube about solitary

One study published this summer in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that solitary confinement is associated with a 31% increase in hypertension. Approximately one-in-three people in solitary who participated in the study were more likely to experience heart attacks, strokes, and - unsurprisingly - higher degrees of loneliness, which also contributes to heart disease. This study was followed by another one this fall which found solitary confinement is associated with increased rates of death after release, particularly by suicide as well as overdose.

While human rights standards adopted by the United Nations state that solitary beyond 15 days is torture, New York State regularly holds people in solitary for months, years, and decades. A campaign led by survivors of solitary confinement and their loved ones is organizing to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, which would end this torture and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives.

Solitary confinement does little to rehabilitate inmates, is extremely expensive (where the average per-cell cost is $75,000), and exacerbates health problems
In fact, a 2018 report found that, 61,000 individuals were being held in solitary confinement across the US. While the living conditions in such units are known to be associated with adverse health outcomes, …Read More

BACKGROUND:

Even prior to COVID-19, use of solitary confinement had actually increased since Governor Cuomo claimed to have implemented reforms in 2015. Advocates are calling for lawmakers to enact HALT - which has majority support in both the Senate and Assembly - to end this racist torture and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives.In ordinary times, solitary itself is a public health crisis that causes immense suffering and far too often leads to heart disease, psychosis, self-mutilation, and death. Deemed torture under international standards, people in solitary are locked in a cell without meaningful human contact or programming. New Cornell research found that even a few days in solitary confinement - and even only one or two days of solitary - led to significantly heightened risk of death by accident, suicide, violence, and other causes.

Black People

Represent about 13% of all people in NYS, but represent 50% of those incarcerated in NYS, and 60% of People held in long-term solitary confinement units in NY

We Spend over 8 Billion Dollars Incarcerating KIDS

End Solitary Confinement for Teenagers NY Times

Stop Solitary for KIDS

In direct contradiction to these health experts' recommendations, New York prisons have doubled down on the use of solitary. Prisons continue to hold people in solitary and continue to send more people to solitary, including for minor non-violent rule violations - even for trying to wear masks to protect from the virus and for refusing to wear a mask when told to. Moreover, the prisons have utilized solitary in the form of keeplock in one's own cell, SHU units, and broader lockdowns as a response to the virus, which is terrible in and of itself and also makes it less likely for people to report symptoms - at a time when such reporting is essential to stop the spread.Solitary confinement is torture. It causes intense suffering and devastating physical and psychological harm. Contrary to the press statements of the Cuomo Administration, a new landmark report from The New York Civil Liberties Union, revealed that the use of solitary is actually increasing in the Governor's prisons. While the SHU population has modestly decreased, the number of people sentenced to Keeplock - another form of solitary - has increased by so much that it offsets the oft-reported progress (with over 38,000 total sentences to solitary last year).

United nations has DECLARED it torture

The entire United Nations General Assembly has denounced solitary exceeding 15 days. In 2015, the US government voted for, and the entire United Nations adopted, the Mandela Rules, which prohibit any person from being held in solitary beyond 15 days. Colorado has implemented a 15-day limit on solitary and reduced the number of people in solitary from 1,500 to 18. New York currently places no limit on the total time a person can spend in isolated confinement.

A 2016 New York Times investigation documented what people who have been most harmed by the prison system have known for decades, that there is a "scourge of racial bias" in New York's imposition of solitary confinement and parole release denials. Yet over three years after that investigation, Governor Cuomo has still failed to address this urgent crisis.While Governor Cuomo has put forward proposed regulations on solitary, an analysis shows these regulations will perpetuate solitary and allow people to be held in solitary for months and years, particularly in light of past practice evidenced by NYCLU's report. The report analyzed the Governor's proposed regulations in comparison with the HALT Solitary Confinement Act and strongly endorses HALT as the way forward. Notably, the Governor's regulations would leave people in Keeplock with no time limits, one of several ways people could be held in endless solitary, along with unlimited cycling back into solitary after purported time limits and no time limits on so-called alternatives that amount to solitary by another name.By contrast, the HALT Solitary Confinement Act would limit solitary confinement in all its forms in line with international human rights standards (including by having a 15 day limit and preventing cycling after the limit), and replace it with more humane and effective alternatives.

Thanks to efforts led by survivors of solitary and their family members, there are more than enough votes in the Legislature to pass HALT. 34 New York State Senators from Long Island to Upstate New York are officially co-sponsoring the HALT Solitary Confinement Act - a clear majority - and additional Senators have committed to vote for the bill as well. 79 New York State Assembly Members also officially co-sponsor HALT - another clear majority - and the bill passed in that house in 2018. An analysis shows HALT will save money.

Community members are calling for New York State Legislators and Governor Cuomo to pass HALT immediately. Learn more at www.nycaic.org. or contact us vpate@nycaic.org

Let’s start at the beginning eras of Perpetual Punishment for Profit & means of control over human capital as a commodity, and the Torture Used, .. Still Today.

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to Black people, allowing white individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalized, de jure slavery.however, the word slavery also refers to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. Scholars use the more generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour to refer to such situations. However, slavery has never ceased to exist just amended to a form of punishment after the ratification of Jim Crow laws in NYS into a prison industrial complex that was birthed in NYS. The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In other areas, slavery continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most widespread form of slavery today; serfdom; domestic servants kept in captivity;in which children are forced to work as slaves; child soldiers. People as Property & Human Trafficking combined best describes NYS penal system in 2020.

The box, also known as a hot box or sweatbox, is a method of solitary confinement used in humid and arid regions as a method of punishment. Anyone placed in one would experience extreme heat, dehydration, heat exhaustion, even death, depending on when and how long one was kept in the box. Another variation of this punishment is known as sweating: the use of a heated room to punish or coerce a person into cooperating with the forced labor. with gruesome outcomes a hot box or solitary torture has been normalized in mainstream media Hot box torture has been portrayed in numerous films and television shows, including Leadbelly, Life Is Beautiful, Cool Hand Luke, Stir Crazy, Take the Money and Run, Carbine Williams, The Longest Yard and its 2005 remake, Seven Days, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Von Ryan's Express, Prison Break, The X-Files, Firefly, Sullivan's Travels, My Name is Earl, The A-Team, Farscape, Burn Notice, Batman: The Animated Series, Bates Motel, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Django Unchained, and Escape Plan. A parody of hot box torture was portrayed by a sandbox in Toy Story 3. Box torture was also used on Josh Groban in Muppets Most Wanted.

Sensory deprivation or perceptual isolation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple methods such as Confinement with no human contact or recreation can cut off sight and hearing, while more complex devices can also cut off the sense of smell, touch, taste, thermoception (heat-sense), and the 'feeling' of gravity. Sensory deprivation has been used in various psychological experiments (e.g. with an isolation tank). long -term sessions of sensory deprivation, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, temporary senselessness, and depression.50% of people in Solitary have killed themselves. A related phenomenon is perceptual deprivation, also called the Ganzfeld effect. In this case a constant uniform stimulus is used instead of attempting to remove the stimuli; this leads to effects which have similarities to sensory deprivation. In NYs you get a double dose, held in solitary on Rikers island & city jails its so loud with constant stimuli, jeux opposed solitary in upstate is so quiet you can hear yourself breath. these two polars produce the same horrific results.

Torture and the United States includes documented and alleged cases of torture both inside and outside the United States by members of the government, the military, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, health care services, and other public organizations.While the term "torture" is defined in numerous places, including dictionaries and encyclopedias of various nations or cultures, this article addresses only those practices qualifying as torture under the definition of that term articulated in the codified (primarily statutory) law and case law of the United States. After the U.S. dismissed United Nations concerns about torture in 2006, one UK judge observed 'America's idea of what is torture ... does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations'.A two-year study by U.S. independent group The Constitution Project concluded that it was "indisputable" that U.S. forces had employed torture as well as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" in many interrogations; that "the nation's most senior officials" bear ultimate responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of these techniques, and that there is substantial evidence that information obtained by these methods was neither useful nor reliable.

Kids In A
BOX