A lawsuit filed against the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision late Wednesday accuses the department of violating state law for holding people in prison in solitary confinement for improper reasons for too long.

The class action suit filed in state Supreme Court by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Prisoners' Legal Services alleges DOCCS violates the Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement, or HALT Act.

The HALT Act, which took effect last April 1, caps the time an incarcerated person in New York can be held in segregated housing to 17 hours per day, and no more than 15 consecutive days, or 20 days over a two-month period.

Advocates and attorneys behind the suit say DOCCS is failing to follow provisions in the law that permit an extended stay in confinement housing, which are supposed to be reserved after a person has been convicted of one of seven actions, including causing or attempting to cause serious physical injury or death. The law also requires the department to prove the act posed a substantial risk of endangering the security of the facility.

"They're imposing confinement for all kinds of things," said James Bogin, senior supervising attorney with Prisoners' Legal Services. "We've had people get confined for throwing wet sugar packets, for throwing water, for saying kind of loose, vague potential threats and things they might do at some unknown time in the future when they're out of prison."

Fuquan Fields and Luis Garcia are plaintiffs in the suit who were each sentenced to be held in segregated confinement housing for hundreds of days. Fields is incarcerated at Great Meadow Correctional Facility and Garcia is held at Five Points Correctional Facility.

Both men are in their 40s and have diagnoses of mental illness.

The HALT Act created residential rehabilitation units and increased programming for people in prison who require additional intervention after 15 days in segregated housing. 

DOCCS Acting Commissioner Anthony Annucci published a memo last fall about the department's early implementation of the law, noting a considerable rise in violence of people in prison in general population and RRUs against staff in the first month of HALT taking effect.

"In the first 30 days of HALT being effective, DOCCS witnessed a considerable rise in violence in general population and more specifically, within the RRU, both in the housing area and in the classroom setting, targeting both staff and the incarcerated population," according to the memo.

Assaults on staff were up 25% since 2021, according to the commissioner's memo, with 15% occurring in RRUs. DOCCS' assault data in prisons does not have to include physical injury.

Injuries of staff also increased 24%, according to Annucci. 

The case will progress after the state responds. A hearing is scheduled for April 28.

"The department has not been served and does not comment on pending litigation," according to a statement from DOCCS on Thursday.

Lawmakers gave the department one year to prepare for the changes under HALT to take effect. 

Four subcommittees helped DOCCS with training and infrastructure work to prepare the department to implement the law, Annucci said at a legislative budget hearing Feb. 7. But historic staffing shortages within prison staff have made it difficult to move incarcerated people to residential rehabilitation units or supervise them for the required out-of-cell time, the commissioner said.

He told lawmakers the department is very close to being in compliance with the new law if they aren't already.

"We tried to hit the ground running, and when we did, we quickly got overwhelmed by the number of assaults that were happening, and so we didn't have sufficient immediate capacity in our RRUs, which backed us up in our SHU capacity," Annucci said during testimony.

Michael Powers, president of the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, says the state failed to give the department the proper resources to successfully implement the policy.

"Where is the advocacy for not just your employees, but the overall violence that occurs inside these facilities?" he said. "...This whole program ultimately never provided the resources to fully implement it in the fashion that it needed to be implemented. ... They had a heavy lift to this hundreds of million-dollar infrastructure plan to roll this out in a very short window period of time."

But advocates argue regardless of Annucci's testimony or other issues, the department continues to break the law.

As of March 1, DOCCS reports 411 incarcerated people held in segregated confinement housing, with about 22% of them who have stayed in that housing for 16 consecutive days or more. It reflects an improvement from December when about 42% of people in segregated confinement had stayed for longer than 15 days. 

Under the HALT Act, that percentage should be zero.

"DOCCS is dramatically and completely irrationally expanding the range of conduct for which it's imposing this very, very harmful form of segregation," said Antony Gemmell, NYCLU's director of detention litigation. "...DOCCS is failing across the board in maintaining this set of practices by which it's imposing extended segregation for infractions that HALT doesn't allow."

The United Nations Mandela Rules defines prolonged solitary confinement that lasts longer than 15 days as human torture.