Board of Correction Adopts Rules to End Solitary Confinement in NYC Jails

The New York City Board of Correction adopted rules to implement the requirements of Local Law 42. That law, enacted by an overwhelming supermajority of the New York City Council and scheduled to take effect on July 28. and the Board’s rules, ban solitary confinement beyond four hours while allowing alternative forms of separation proven to reduce violence and better support people’s health. In response to the Board’s vote, Victor Pate, Co-Director of the #HALTsolitary Campaign and a survivor of solitary, said: 

“We thank the Board of Correction for doing the right thing by voting today to adopt their rules implementing Local Law 42. We appreciate the Board recognizing that people in New York City’s jails must be treated more humanely. Now that the Board and a supermajority of the City Council have spoken, it is time for the Mayor and Department of Correction to implement the law and these rules to end solitary confinement and utilize alternative forms of separation proven to reduce violence and better protect people’s health.”

Background

On the Urgent Need to End Solitary Confinement

1. Solitary confinement is government torture that inflicts devastating and deadly harm. Solitary causes people to engage in self-mutilation. It causes heart disease. It causes anxiety, depression, and psychosis. In NYC, solitary confinement is almost exclusively inflicted on Black and brown people, who make up over 90% of all people in NYC jails.
2. Even after release from incarceration, a study of hundreds of thousands of people released from prison in North Carolina over a 15 year period found that people who had spent time in solitary were significantly more likely to die by suicide and other causes. Research shows that even only one or two days in solitary leads to significantly heightened risk of death by accident, suicide, violence, overdose, and other causes.
3. Solitary confinement killed Kalief Browder 9 years ago and Layleen Polanco 5 years ago. On the day of her death in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, Layleen Polanco had been locked in her cell for two or three hours before she died. 
4. Contrary to the purported justification for its use, solitary also makes jails and outside communities less safe for everyone by causing people to deteriorate and in turn increasing the risk of harmful acts. Numerous studies, such as here and here show that people who have spent time in solitary or restrictive housing are more likely to be re-arrested after release from incarceration.
5. On the other hand, the evidence is clear: if a system is trying to reduce violence what works much better than solitary is the exact opposite of solitary: pro-social program-based interventions that involve full days of out-of-cell group programming and engagement, like the CAPS program in NYC jails, the Merle Cooper Program in NYS, and the RSVP program in San Francisco jails.
   • For example, the RSVP program included people who had carried out acts of assault, sexual assault, other violent acts, and repeated “heinous” acts. It led to a precipitous drop in violence among participants to the point of having zero incidents over a one year period. People who participated in the program also had dramatically lower rates of re-arrest for violent charges after release from jail.
   • Best practices in youth and mental health facilities limit isolation to minutes or hours at most, with positive impacts on safety and people’s health and well-being.
6. Despite repeated promises over many years to end solitary – invoking Layleen’s and Kalief’s names, the city jails continue to lock people in solitary by many different names, with torturous and deadly results. 
7. Brandon Rodriguez died after he was locked in solitary in a shower cage. The city jails locked Elijah Muhammad in solitary in those same shower cages to the point he was found with a ligature around his neck, and then placed Elijah in another form of solitary confinement that is supposed to be “de-escalation confinement”, leading to his death. DOC initiated yet another form of solitary in 2022 through automatic lockdowns in general population in George R. Vierno Center, and that is where Erick Tavira died after being locked in solitary.
8. People in the city jails continue to be locked in solitary in: (1) so-called de-escalation units and decontamination showers, (2) so-called structurally restrictive housing in North Infirmary Command (NIC) and West Facility that is nothing more than solitary confinement by another name for 23 to 24 hours a day, (3) Enhanced Supervision Housing (ESH), (4) Rose M Singer ESH (RESH), (5) George R. Vierno Center automatic lockdowns in supposed general population, (6) repeated lockdowns throughout the jails, and more. People are still locked in solitary for 23 to 24 hours a day for days, weeks, months and more. There are people who have been in solitary for nearly a year and are still there.
9. Op-ed by Tamara Carter: While the Mayor falsely claims there’s been no solitary in NYC since 2019, Tamara’s son Brandon died in solitary in a shower cage in August 2021. Tamara talks about all the continued various forms of solitary and their harmful impacts, and how her son would still be alive today if Local Law 42 had been in place. “I couldn’t save my son’s life, but if I can help save another person’s life and make sure no other family has to go through what we have gone through, that is so important to me.”
10. Op-ed by Dr. James Gilligan and Dr. Bandy Lee, who have decades of experience designing, operating, and evaluating violence prevention programs in jails and prisons: lauding the Council for taking a crucial step toward scientifically proven methods of violence prevention by passing Local Law 42 and documenting how – contrary to critics’ claims – Local Law 42’s ban on solitary and utilization of proven alternatives, will stop torture, save lives, and reduce violence.
11. A Columbia University Center for Justice report documents how NYC jails continue to lock people in solitary confinement in various units by various names, with devastating and deadly consequences.

On What Local Law 42 Does

1. The core of Local Law 42 is ending solitary confinement, in all forms by all names, beyond a maximum of four hours for emergency de-escalation, while instead allowing alternative forms of separation proven to better support people’s health and safety for everyone. 
2. To be clear, under Local Law 42 if someone engages in violence, they can immediately be locked in a cell on an emergency basis for purposes of de-escalation in order to address the immediate situation, for up to four hours. After that immediate period, people can still be separated from the general facility population in alternative units. Local Law 42 would change the nature of that separation. Rather than isolation that is known to cause harm and increase the likelihood of violence, people who are separated would be placed in environments, like CAPS, Merle Cooper, and RSVP above, that are better suited for actually reducing and preventing violence and keeping people more healthy.
3. To ensure that the ban on solitary confinement is real and to prevent the Department of Correction from imposing solitary confinement by a different name as it has repeatedly done, the law provides very clear definitions of various terms, including “cell”, “out of cell”, and “restrictive housing.” Although one might not think it necessary to define “cell” or “out of cell”, given that the Department has in the past considered being locked alone in an extended cell as “out of cell” these definitions are imperative to ensure that people have access to actually being outside of a cell, in a shared space with other people.
4. Also to ensure that alternative units do not replicate the harms of solitary by another name and instead follow proven programs like CAPS and RSVP, the law requires that the forty-year-old basic minimum standard for out-of-cell time in NYC jails – namely access to 14 hours of daily out-of-cell time with people only involuntarily locked in for 8 hours at night for sleep and 2 hours during the day for count – applies to all people in the jails apart from de-escalation confinement, including people in alternative units. The law also requires people to have access to seven hours of daily out of cell group programming or activities, and limits the use of restraints to prevent people from automatically being chained to desks during out-of-cell time.
5. The law also enhances fairness, transparency and accountability by enhancing due process protections, including access to representation, time limits on placement in restrictive housing, and public reporting on the use of solitary and alternatives.
6. A point-by-point response to claims made by the monitor. The bottom line: the status quo has led to horrible cycles of abuse, violence, and death, and can not continue. Local Law 42 presents an opportunity for an alternative approach scientifically proven to reduce violence and better protect people’s health.

On Widespread Support for Local Law 42 to End Solitary in NYC

1. After all of the failed promises in the names of Kalief and Layleen, now is the moment for New York City to implement Local Law 42 to finally end solitary confinement.
2. A large veto-proof supermajority of the City Council passed Local Law 42 on December 20, 2023, by a vote of 39-7 and then an even larger number of Council Members voted to override the Mayor’s veto, 42-9 in January. 2024, thereby enacting Local Law 42.
3. Polling data shows the vast majority of voters across the country support ending solitary specifically in line with the provisions of Local Law 42, by a +32-point margin, with 78% of Democrats, 61% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans supporting it.
4. Every member of the NYC Democratic U.S. House delegation urged NYC to fully end solitary. Over 160 leading civil rights, racial justice, and human rights organizations urged New York City to fully end solitary confinement. 74 state legislators said DOC’s policies violate the state HALT Solitary Law and urged Council action. 1199SEIU United Health Care Workers East endorsed Local Law 42 and urged the City Council to pass it.
5. Op-ed by Haydeth and Amariliz Torres Tavira, whose son and brother, Erick Tavira, died in solitary on Rikers in 2022: praised the Council for passing Local Law 42. Op-ed by Akeem Browder, whose brother Kalief Browder was killed by solitary and whose mother subsequently died of a broken heart, urged enactment of Local Law 42.
6. Coverage of the Council’s vote to ban solitary in nearly every major news outlet in NY and across the country: The Hill, NPR, New York Magazine, NYT here and here, NBC, PBS, Gothamist, Reuters, AP, Daily News, Black Enterprise, El Diario, City Council, NY1, AMNY, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Queens Daily Eagle, Truthout, ABC, ABC, CBS, News12, Pix11, Independent, and many more.
7. With the years-long deadly crisis plaguing Rikers and the city jails, ending solitary and providing people with access to real out-of-cell time and programming is one concrete and urgent step to save lives, better support people’s health, and reduce violence. With the prospect of receivership looming and the possibility of closing Rikers and operating jails with a different approach, it is more urgent than ever to implement Local Law 42 to ensure that solitary confinement is longer practiced in New York City.