Support the Campaign to #HALTsolitary in New York

The #HALTsolitary Campaign Needs Your Help TODAY to End Torture in New York's Prisons and Jails. 

Dear Friends:

We are reaching out to you at a critical moment in the fight to end solitary confinement in New York, to ask for your support. If you care about stopping the torture that is taking place in our prisons and jails every day, PLEASE take a moment to read this through and see what's at stake, and what you can do to help.

As many of you know, solitary confinement--the practice of locking people down in small cells for up to 24 hours a day without meaningful human contact, programming, or therapy--has been proven to cause extreme suffering and psychological and neurological damage. Here is how Sarah, who spent 18 months in solitary, describes her experience:

"In the box I feel like death…After a while I start talking to ants, crickets or any other living or imaginary thing I can think of so I do not totally lose what is left of my mind…This is the damage that happens by throwing people into cages to rot under the pretense that more punishment, isolation, and deprivation will make them change for the better."

Solitary confinement harms not only the incarcerated people who endure it, but also the families and communities to which they will one day return. The UN has denounced solitary beyond 15 days as torture. Despite these facts, NEW YORK'S PRISONS AND JAILS STILL HOLD THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN ISOLATION FOR MONTHS, YEARS, AND EVEN DECADES. 

For several years, the #HALTsolitary Campaign, led by the NY Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, has been fighting to end the use of prolonged solitary confinement in New York through passage of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act. The most progressive piece of anti-solitary legislation in the country, the HALT Act would ban isolation beyond 15 days, and replace it with safe and effective alternatives. 

TODAY WE ARE CLOSER THAN EVER BEFORE TO PASSING THE HALT ACT! But to prevail, we need to keep up and even increase the pressure. For this, we  rely not only on an army of committed volunteers, but also on our staff of amazing campaign organizers, who are personally impacted by solitary. WITHOUT YOUR HELP, WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CARRY OUT THE WORK WE SO URGENTLY NEED TO DO. 

Donations in ANY amount bring us closer to our goal, and are deeply appreciated. And DONATIONS ARE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE through our fiscal sponsor, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), a 501c3 non-profit organization.  Simply click on the DONATE button, or send a check payable to NRCAT, with "NYCAIC" noted in the memo, to 110 Maryland Ave. NE, Suite 502, Washington, DC 20002. For more information on donating, contact caicny@gmail.com.

OUR NEED FOR FUNDS IS URGENT. Please give today, and please share this request with your family, friends, colleagues, and social media contacts, letting them know why the #HALTsolitary campaign is important to you. WITH YOUR SUPPORT, WE WILL MAKE NEW YORK THE VERY FIRST PLACE IN THE UNITED STATES WHERE THE TORTURE OF LONG-TERM SOLITARY IS NO LONGER LEGAL. And you will be able to take pride in knowing you helped it happen. 

Thank you for your support.

"I’ve read of the studies done regarding the effects of long-term isolation in solitary confinement, seen how researchers say it can ruin a man’s mind, and I’ve watched with my own eyes the slow descent of sane men into madness—sometimes not so slow. What I’ve never seen the experts write about, though, is what year after year of abject isolation can do to that immaterial part in our middle where hopes survive or die and the spirit resides...

"I’ve experienced times so difficult and felt boredom and loneliness to such a degree that it seemed to be a physical thing inside, so thick it felt like it was choking me, trying to squeeze the sanity from my mind, the spirit from my soul, and the life from my body. I’ve seen and felt hope becoming like a foggy ephemeral thing, hard to get a hold of, even harder to keep a hold of as the years and then decades disappeared while I stayed trapped in the emptiness of the [solitary] world. " 

— William, 30 years in solitary in New York State prisons