Gabe Stern
Troy Brown shouts at the New York State Capitol building at the start of an overnight demonstration in Albany, New York on Monday.
ALBANY, N.Y. —A makeshift cemetery created outside the New York State Capitol building was the backdrop to a last-ditch overnight demonstration to push for three longshot criminal justice bills organizers helped write.
Troy L. Brown, 56, entered Rikers Island 40 years ago. On arrival he was beaten. For decades he was in and out of correctional facilities. Monday he was clad in Jordan brand shoes and sweats, a Malcolm X shirt and a leather jacket — an outfit he might wear when he’s known as DJ RPMc in New York City.
Twelve years after his release date, he shook while talking about it publicly.
Brown turned away from the crowd of about 50 and shouted directly at the Capitol.
“First of all, I’m disappointed,” he said. “I haven’t been in prison a long time. And I come here and you got people dying [from COVID-19] all over the place.”
Organizers for Release Aging People from Prison (RAPP) and the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (#Haltsolitary) had worked on three bills that focused on solitary confinement, paroling certain elderly inmates and changing parole criteria.
In the Capitol, state lawmakers met to prepare for a crucial week of voting on about 100 bills, many for coronavirus protections and renaming buildings, that would be discussed in committee then brought to the floor for a vote. But the three bills were an afterthought in a week marked by urgency in Albany.
The Humane Alternatives to Long-term (HALT) Solitary Confinement bill, which would end long-term solitary confinement and push alternatives for short-term confinement, did not make it out of the Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee. The Elder Parole bill is also bottled up in that committee, which would allow for parole hearings for inmates 55 or older with at least 15 years in prison. So is the Fair and Timely Parole bill, a measure that would widen the criteria for how inmates are judged for parole.
“In a strategy session, we [asked] ‘What is it that we should do now, what should we do next?’” said Victor Pate from #Haltsolitary campaign. His advocacy started in the 1970s when he was an inmate. He was placed in solitary confinement on and off for two years, he said, because he often called out correctional officers when they beat inmates.
“Somebody suggested, ‘Maybe we should go to Albany and bring our solitary confinement replica cell, and bring it right across the street from the legislative office building.’”
The makeshift box
On the back of the “cell” was a picture of Ben Van Zandt, a 21-year-old who committed suicide after being locked in a cell like this as a teenager. Standing next to it was Doug Van Zandt, his father, who spent the winter building the box in his Bethlehem, New York garage. He brought it to protests and demonstrations, asking state lawmakers to spend a minute inside the 6-by-9 foot confinement cell.
“They don’t really know how small it is,” he said.
Voices inside Ben’s head sometimes confused him, Doug said. Police arrested Ben, then 17, on charges of starting a fire inside a building. He was sentenced to four to 12 years in correctional facilities. He never got help for his illness in prison, Doug said, felt threatened by correctional officers and was sometimes brutalized. He was placed in solitary confinement and killed himself in 2014.
Jon Anderson Jr. walked by the box with his son. He hadn’t known about the rally but saw the box while driving by. He spent two years in prison and two days in solitary confinement before he was released.
“I was driving by with my son, and I always feel like the best lesson is reality, seeing certain things,” he said.
Van Zandt opened the doors and Anderson turned to his son. “This is reality. This is what happens.”
‘Our legislators have chosen to do nothing’
Anthony Dixon, who was incarcerated for 32 years, told the crowd, “After a year, I never recovered. Something was taken from me that I could never put my hands on.”
Thomas Kearney, a capitol region organizer for RAPP, planned for protesters to shout at lawmakers as they left their side of the Capitol Monday night.
None came out.
They held a press conference anyway. Shaqueena Charles, 28, of All of Us, had spent time in Schenectady County Jail and knew people who went through solitary confinement.
“You are an egg in those black walls and you go in there and you crack. When you come out you’re a cracked egg and you’re scrambled up,” she said, pointing at the box. “... you’re not correcting them, you’re only making them worse.”
All of Us protesters, an activist group from Schenectady, New York, burned a Confederate flag on the steps of the Capitol. They played music, streamed a movie and slept on blankets.
After it was clear the three bills wouldn’t make it to the floor today, organizers marched with body bags onto the Capitol steps and dropped them to symbolize inmates who have died during the coronavirus pandemic.
“During the pandemic, our legislators have chosen to do nothing,” Kearney said. “Our governor has chosen to do nothing.”