For Immediate Release
Justice and Unity in the Southern Tier (JUST)
March 3, 2025
Contacts: Andrew Pragacz, 651-747-6316, Rozann Greco 607-348-3868. ajrpragacz@gmail.com, rozanngreco@gmail.com
JUST Calls on Elected Officials to Fully Implement HALT and Improve Jail Conditions
Press conference
Tuesday, March 4, 1:30pm
Broome County Office Building, 60 Hawley Street in Binghamton
On December 9th Robert Brooks, a 43-year-old Black man incarcerated in Marcy Correctional Facility, was brutally murdered by a gang of State employees. This time, the death was inadvertently captured on body camera, allowing the world to see the brutality of the state’s jails and prisons. As Robert Brooks’ murderers were about to be indicted, state prison guards launched an unauthorized strike action, causing widespread disruption and facility lockdowns. Incarcerated people are missing medical care and programming. Food is not being delivered. The officers’ demand? To overturn completely the HALT law, passed in 2021 by supermajorities in Albany, that strictly limits the use of solitary and provides rehabilitative programming. The irony: The HALT law has never been fully implemented, with sheriffs’ and the state prison system skirting the law at every turn. We call for HALT to be fully implemented. A description of the law and ways it has been illegally evaded is attached.
Medical maltreatment and death is also common in the Broome County Jail. Over a dozen people have died in our county jail thanks to documented medical neglect, abuse, and suicide in the last 12 years. State reports detailing inadequate medical services, successful wrongful death lawsuits, and testimonials of abuse by family and friends from loved ones inside the jail testify to enduring brutalities. It is not by chance that as State Senator and now as Sheriff Fred Akshar has long promoted solitary and opposed HALT.
In the wake of Robert Brooks’ murder, the correctional officers strike, and local abuses, JUST calls on elected officials and civil society groups to act together to put an end to in-custody deaths and abuse. JUST denounces the irresponsible actions of Sheriff Fred Akshar and Congressman Josh Riley in promoting the unauthorized strike action and parroting calls to repeal HALT. These two elected officials are putting their political ambitions above their commitments to the people of our county. In joining picket lines they are undermining correctional facility safety and oversight. Even worse, they are encouraging impunity for abuse by state employees. This is not the action of leaders seeking solutions. They need to call on correctional officers to return to work and work with our community to improve jail and prison conditions.
What do we do? JUST outlines here a path to improve conditions inside our county jail, reduce reliance on incarceration, and provide basic oversight. These demands build on JUST’s “Less Death and More Health: An Action Plan for Broome County” developed in 2017.
How we improve conditions inside and make our communities safer:
- An end to torture of incarcerated people. The first step: full implementation of the HALT Act across all New York’s prisons and jails. The HALT Act has never been fully implemented at the state level or in Broome County. Today, just as many people are in long time confinement as were before the law’s passage.
- A public commitment by all our elected officials to work together to ensure HALT implementation in Broome County.
- A public condemnation of the torture of incarcerated people, including the unrestricted use of solitary confinement, by all elected representatives and bodies in Broome County
- More programming for people kept in isolation/solitary in the Broome County Jail. People should have access to reading material, paper for writing and journaling, phone/video communication, and tablets and other prosocial programming
- An independent, local monitoring process to ensure solitary confinement is not practiced in Broome County
- We further call on the Broome County Legislature to pass legislation allowing members of the Broome County legislature to inspect the Broome County jail with unannounced visits, as is possible for state representatives
- Improve conditions within the Broome County jail, including, but not limited to: better nutrition and more calories, additional educational programs, timely access to SUD treatment, improved medical care, access to prescribed medications, and more and better personal care products particularly for women, the disabled, and LGBTQ persons
- Legislative efforts to improve oversight and accountability of jails and prisons. Jails Justice Network (JJN), of which JUST is a leading member, has a legislative package of three bills to improve oversight. See attached. We request elected officials, at every level, demonstrate their support for these bills and do whatever they can to pass them.
- At the state level, pass Elder Parole Bill (S454/A514), Fair & Timely Parole (S307/A162), and Rights Behind Bars (S3763/A1261A) bills to transform the environment within prisons and jails and create meaningful opportunities for case by case consideration of release from prison for people who have demonstrated their readiness.
JUST briefing paper: Know your rights 2025 solitary only