The “Journey to Justice” tour has been stopping at cities across the country on its way from California to Washington, D.C. Parked outside the Presbyterian Church of Mt. Kisco, the pink, retrofitted school bus tells the stories of people who have been subjected to solitary confinement while in U.S. prisons.
Anisah Sabur is a longtime advocate for incarcerated people, and the national coordinator of the Unlock the Box Campaign, which organized the exhibit. She says solitary confinement amounts to torture.
“You hear people talk about the real impact. Like, people who are mentally deteriorating, people who do self-harm, people who’ve actually lost their lives in solitary confinement," says Sabur. "And so this is why we’re bringing this bus to states that don’t think that they have solitary confinement. Because they use so many different names, but it’s all the same thing: it’s isolation.”
Sabur says no state currently bans solitary confinement. New York signed the HALT Act, which limits its use, in 2021. The law restricts isolation to 17 hours a day, for a maximum of 15 days, giving inmates more out-of-cell time to interact with others and access different support programs. It also bans the use of solitary confinement on pregnant women, people with disabilities, and those under the age of 21 or over age 55.
But advocates like Sabur say the law isn’t being followed.
“They have not even attempted to implement any part of the law," she says, shaking her head.
Wednesday’s event featured a community discussion urging residents to sign letters to state and local lawmakers. New York Governor Kathy Hochul rolled back parts of the HALT Act after corrections officers across the state launched an unauthorized strike earlier this year. Corrections officers say the HALT Act prevents them from disciplining inmates and makes prisons less safe.
Speakers at Wednesday’s meeting, including Sabur, say prisons wouldn’t be less safe if they fully implemented the HALT Act and offered alternatives to solitary confinement. She says the pressure should be on Hochul.
“She runs this state. It's up to her to put her foot down," says Sabur. "The same way she put her foot down and fired 2,000 officers doing that illegal strike. She can do the same thing when it comes to the implementation of HALT.”
Organizers also alleged the strike was less a response to the HALT Act, and more a distraction from the murder of Robert Brooks. Brooks died after he was beaten by prison officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in Utica. Ten people have been charged in his death.
On Monday, a jury convicted one of the former officers, David Kingsley, of murder, while two other guards were acquitted. Six others have already pleaded guilty in the case.
Back on the bus, visitors were encouraged to sit in small bunk beds to get a sense of what cell beds are like. There was a small theatre showing documentaries in the back, and rows of lockers containing the stories of different inmate advocates, some of whom are still in prison.
Organizers specifically suggested guests close their eyes and imagine how it would feel being in an isolated cell. Multiple attendees at Wednesday’s event said they felt “cold” or “lonely,” for example. But if “quiet” is word that comes to mind, Sabur says that’s not necessarily the case. One exhibit on the bus plays the “sounds of solitary:” people banging on the walls and screaming.
“These are all the people who are there who are deteriorating mentally. They have nothing else to do but make noise," says Sabur. "That’s the sounds of solitary.”
The event had multiple survivors of solitary confinement on hand to share their personal experiences. Sammie Werkheiser and her wife, Jules, spent at least four years at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women on charges that were ultimately thrown out. Sammie says she gave birth to twins behind bars. Her daughter, Jacinta, didn’t survive. To this day, she says she struggles with the sound of jingling keys and the sight of blue shirts, as they remind her of the prison guards she knew while in isolation.
“I share my story so that people know that solitary confinement is not a place for pregnant individuals," says Werkheiser. "Before the law was passed, individuals were in solitary — and had been in the state of New York — for decades. And I think that it’s just unreasonable to have any individual in solitary at all.”
