Council bans solitary confinement

The New York City Council passed a bill Wednesday that will ban solitary confinement in New York’s jails. Photo John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit

By Ryan Schwach

The New York City Council passed a bill on Wednesday that bans the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails, setting up a potential battle with the mayor who has expressed staunch opposition to the legislation.

A long time coming, the bill was approved by a 39 to seven vote with one abstention at the Council’s final stated meeting of 2023, marking a full three years since it was first introduced. The bill has drawn criticism from moderates and conservatives in the Council, as well as the mayor, who may potentially veto the bill once it gets to his desk.

First introduced in 2020 by former Queens City Councilmember Daniel Dromm, the bill would essentially ban solitary confinement in New York City jails. The version that was passed by a veto-proof majority of the Council on Wednesday was brought to the floor by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and co-sponsored by 38 members of the legislature.

“What [solitary confinement] is, is torture – it is cruel and inhumane,” Williams said on Wednesday. “It can ruin people's lives and too many don't survive.”

The legislation would prevent incarcerated individuals from being held in an isolated cell for more than two hours per day within a 24-hour period and for more than eight hours at night directly after an alleged offense occurred – the confinement would be referred to as a “de-escalation” period. Should corrections officials determine that further confinement is required to de-escalate a situation, an incarcerated person could be held for up to four hours total in a 24-hour period.

The bill would also require that staff meet with the incarcerated person at least once an hour to attempt to de-escalate the situation. Originally, the bill required that medical staff conduct checks on the incarcerated person in confinement every 15 minutes. However, after facing opposition from the union representing medical workers on Rikers Island, the bill was changed to require instead that the checks be conducted by Department of Correction staff. The change was enough to get the union behind the bill.

Williams, and other proponents of the bill, argue that lengthy spells of solitary confinement used as punishment have negative effects on detainees, from mental health issues to a higher likelihood of being re-arrested.

“People who are undergoing solitary confinement are more likely to die from opioid abuse two weeks after they're released, they're more likely to commit suicide, be involved in a homicide death, twice as likely to be re-arrested,” said Williams. “This bill allows for isolation for a time period to de-escalate, and then it allows for separation from the general public to keep the general population safe, and to keep staffers safe.”

In a statement on Monday, City Hall said that New York has not used solitary confinement “for years,” while simultaneously arguing that getting rid of the supposedly unused practice would make Rikers Island less safe.

A report from the Columbia University Center for Justice issued this month says the opposite, saying that “New York City jails continue to inflict various forms of solitary confinement by various different names.”

Those different names include “punitive segregation,” a practice the city says it uses and which the same report says is not substantially different from solitary confinement.

“Many tried to mask the practice of isolation with euphemistic names like punitive segregation, but there often is no difference, it is solitary confinement,” said Williams on Wednesday.

“No matter what terminology you use, punitive segregation, solitary, however you use it, it is isolation that the UN has called torture and that is what we want to end,” he added.

Others echoed the same sentiment on Wednesday.

“No matter what you call it, solitary confinement is abusive, horrific and inhumane,” said Councilmember Carlina Rivera, the co-prime sponsor on the bill. “We must strive for a criminal legal system that leads the nation in reforms rather than accepting the status quo.”

The bill also received support from several members of Queens delegation at the vote on Wednesday evening.

“New York City will never torture our way to public safety,” said Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, who sponsored the bill alongside Rivera.

There remains pushback on the bill however, particularly from the union who represents correction officers, the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association, which has opposed the bill since its inception.

Prior to the bill’s passage, the president of COBA, Benny Boscio, claimed that the passage of the bill would subject officers to more assaults at the hands of detainees.

“If the City Council passes Public Advocate Jumaane Williams' bill on Wednesday that would ban punitive segregation in the city's jails, we will never be able to separate violent offenders, who jeopardize the safety of everyone in our jails and we will hold any councilmember who supports this reckless legislation responsible for the inevitable surge in attacks on our officers in the wake of Wednesday's vote,” he said.

The New York City Council passed a bill Wednesday that will ban solitary confinement in New York’s jails. Photo John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit

Williams also acknowledged the recent harm done to correction officers, including sexual assault, by detainees, but said that those indicents are occuring now, while solitary confinement is actively used on Rikers.

“That is real, it is happening now, while they're using solitary and using isolation,” he said. “So, that is not stopping the issue that they are raising. If we want something different, we have to do something different.”

There was also pushback against the bill from the Common Sense Caucus of the City Council. The conservative-leaning caucus rallied on Wednesday morning in opposition to the solitary confinement ban as well as another public safety bill passed by the Council on Wednesday called the “No More Stops Act,” which requires NYPD officers to make more detailed reports on certain public interactions.

"Once again, progressives are putting safety last in service of their radical agenda," said Queens Councilmember Vickie Paladino. "Their toxic ideology demands that police and jails are dismantled, and these bills are yet another step in that direction. They simply don't care what happens to the law-abiding residents of this city as a consequence."

While explaining her vote, Paladino told her colleagues to “wake up,” and said “there's no such thing as solitary confinement.”

The mayor has not explicitly said he would veto the bill. Should he, his veto would likely serve only as a symbolic gesture – the Council has said they’d be prepared to override the mayor’s veto should he issue it.

Nonetheless, the mayor railed against the bill during the week leading up to the vote.

“I don’t like the bills and we want to continue to talk with the councilmembers because the overwhelming number of councilmembers want their community safe,” Mayor Adams said. “They want to make sure that we treat those who are incarcerated in a humane way, but what I have found is that idealism collides with realism.”

The mayor said he’s taken particular issue with a section of the bill that requires detainees to have their placement in a de-escalation unit reviewed during a hearing. Mayor Adams said that he was concerned that the detainee would be allowed to commit further harm while a hearing was carried out.

The New York City Council passed a bill Wednesday that will ban solitary confinement in New York’s jails, sponsored by Public Advocate jumaane Williams.  Photo John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit

However, supporters of the bill say the mayor is reading wrong. On Wednesday, Williams said the bill’s order of operations would be “separate, de-escalate and investigate.”

The prospect of a mayoral veto didn’t appear to concern the council’s speaker, who earlier this year led the council in overriding a mayoral veto of the legislative body’s housing legislation.

“We're going to wait and see what happens," Speaker Adams said of a possible veto. “We certainly hope not. If it does play out, then we follow the same procedure that we did when the instance of a veto happened last time.”