A push to end solitary confinement in New York State just received some devastating new data. Use of isolation in state prisons has actually gone up since the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit over the practice in 2012.

"People who are incarcerated in New York State are subjected to what amounts to torture, because the UN defines as torture a long, extreme isolation for more than 15 days. Well, we have people in isolation for weeks, and months and years," said Donna Lieberman of the NYCLU.

The report from the NYCLU finds that among the 45,000 people held annually in state prisons, those relegated to the special housing unit, or SHU decreased by 2,400. This is where inmates are kept in a locked and often dark room for 23 hours per day. But the number of those kept in what is known as "Keeplock" went up by 3,100 cases, resulting in an overall increase in uses of solitary. Keeplock is also cell confinement, but it's more of a gate-like door, allowing more contact with what is going on outside the cell.

In the final days of the legislative session earlier this year, a bill to curtail solitary confinement failed to pass the legislature.

"The Governor made it very clear to us that as written; he would veto the solitary confinement bill. So, dealing with that reality that if we pass this bill, we are probbaly going to force a veto from the Governor. And that is not going to help anything," said Luis Sepulveda, a Bronx State Senator.

Cuomo and legislative leaders agreed to make administrative changes to how solitary confinement is used, but critics say they fall short.

"Unfortunately those regulations are really a watered down measure, compared to another option for New Yorkers which is the HALT Act. The humane alternative to long-term solitary confinement," said Phil Desgranges, of the NYCLU.

The City ended solitary confinement in its jails for those under 21 in 2016, but the union leader for Corrections officers says that move has led to more violence. Reached by phone, Elias Husamudeen said "I wish they could be as concerned about the victims as they are about the perpetrators committing these crimes. Every year since punitive segregation for 16 to 21 year olds was eliminated, assaults in jails have gone up."

The changes proposed by the Cuomo administrations have yet to be implemented, and likely won't be until next year at the earliest. Lawmakers are hopeful to get a deal on the HALT legislation in the first few months of the 2020 legislative session beginning in January, but the new bill is likely to look very different than the current one limiting solitary to 15 straight days.