NEWS: “No Escape” from Solitary on Rikers Island

April 11, 2013 by

By Maura R. O’Connor. Excerpted from the New York World.

rasaun-300x169In his Bronx courtroom, Judge William Mogulescu stores case files in standard-issue gray cabinets, each drawer labeled with the year the cases within it originated. The oldest, “2008,” is nearly empty, with the exception of a bursting and battered legal-size folder.

Inside sit the traces of a court case that has stretched on for more than four years, through at least a dozen motions, four lawyers, five judges and nearly 50 court dates. That does not include the four civil rights suits filed in federal court by the defendant, who entered the court system on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge.

This file encompasses the harrowing story of Rasaun Bullock, a now 39-year-old man from the Bronx who spent more than four years incarcerated on Rikers Island. He endured at least 49 months of those in solitary confinement.

I have been locked in a room 24-7 for 2008 to present (today is 2011),” Bullock wrote in one of his civil rights complaints. “DOC yells at me & say they say you crazy- and that makes me sad & mad upset (very sad & upset).”

The astonishing length of Bullock’s incarceration and legal proceedings has gained him notoriety in this Bronx courtroom. So has his relentlessness in pursuing justice. “In all the years I’ve been on the bench, he is the only defendant that got my chambers’ number and was able to call my chambers,” said Judge Mogulescu, who has presided over the case since September 2011. “I have no clue how he got it.”

The judge declined to comment further because Bullock’s case will most likely enter an appeal process.

Bullock is among many defendants at Rikers who have stayed behind bars for years while their criminal trials grind forward. Like hundreds of other inmates at any given time, he was kept in solitary confinement, under conditions that mental health research has found can cause serious psychological deterioration. In Bullock’s case, his torments made it difficult, if not impossible, for him to get a speedy trial.

Read the rest here.

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NEWS: New York Groups Unite in Call for Alternatives to Solitary Confinement in Prisons and Jails

March 19, 2013 by

The following press release served as the official announcement of the formation of CAIC. Click here for a copy of the press release to print and email: NYCAIC Press Release 3-12-13 pdf

NEW YORK — Dozens of organizations joined together today to challenge the torturous abuse of solitary confinement in prisons and jails across New York, urging Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York legislature, and state and city corrections officials to “Think Outside the Box.” The Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC) is a state-wide campaign of organizations and concerned community members, including formerly incarcerated persons and family members of loved ones in isolated confinement. CAIC is engaged in public education and community outreach in order to organize support for an end to solitary confinement.

CAIC was formed in response to New York’s practice of using isolated confinement far too broadly, routinely, and for far too long a period of time. In fact, New York holds people in isolated confinement at rates significantly above the national average. On any given day, there are nearly 4,500 people, disproportionately people of color, in New York State prisons who are in special housing units (SHU) and thousands more subjected to keeplock, two forms of isolated confinement. There are also around 1,000 people in New York City jails in isolation.

All of these individuals are confined in a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day without meaningful human contact, programming, or therapy. People are often subjected to these conditions for months, years, and decades at a time. Whether called the Box, the Bing, the SHU, solitary, or isolation, such inhumane conditions often cause deep and permanent psychological, physical, and social harm both for persons who are mentally stable and for people with pre-existing mental health needs or disabilities.

[Read more…]

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NEWS: NYCLU Seeks Class-Action Status in Challenge to Use of Solitary Confinement in NY Prisons

March 11, 2013 by

Press release. Reprinted from the New York Civil Liberties Union site.

Tonja Fenton and family

Tonja Fenton and family

March 6, 2013 — In a court filing today, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster took steps to obtain class-action status in a federal lawsuit challenging New York prison officials’ policies and practices that result in the arbitrary, inhumane and unconstitutional use of solitary confinement in state prisons.

The filing is an amended class-action complaint in Peoples v. Fischer, a lawsuit the NYCLU filed on behalf of Leroy Peoples, who spent 780 days confined in extreme isolation as punishment for non-violent misbehavior that involved no threat to the safety or security of others. Today’s filing seeks to extend the scope of the lawsuit to include all individuals incarcerated in state prisons similarly affected by Department of Corrections and Community Supervision policies and practices permitting the arbitrary and unnecessary use of solitary confinement.

“Solitary confinement and extreme isolation are uniquely cruel and debilitating punishments that are being routinely imposed on people for a range of non-violent disciplinary infractions,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “Prison officials’ arbitrary and inhumane use of extreme isolation for such extraordinarily long amounts of time inflicts excruciating suffering on thousands of individuals each year and makes our prisons and communities less safe. If they refuse to end this practice, we are confident that the courts will require them to do so.”

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NEWS: New York State Corrections Commissioner Announces Retirement

March 6, 2013 by

fischer07bioThe Albany-based Capitol Confidential reported yesterday that Brian Fischer, commissioner of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, will retire at the end of next month. The report continues:

A Brooklyn native who has worked as a parole officer and ran Sing Sing prison, Fischer has held cabinet posts since his 2007 appointment by Eliot Spitzer. He supervised the merger of the Department of Correctional Services with the Division of Parole in 2011.

“Over the years I have seen many changes, including the ironic fact that when I came to the Department the Division of Parole was part of the agency, then it wasn’t, and now it is,” Fischer wrote in a memorandum to staff that was distributed Monday. “Together we have accomplished much, and I know that good things will continue to develop.”

No immediate word from Cuomo aides on who might be named to succeed Fischer.

Brian Fischer’s tenure as commissioner has seen a rising resistance to the widespread use of isolated confinement in New York’s state prisons. According to an article that ran last year in The Nation: “At a forum in January held by the New York State Bar Association…Fischer insisted that some segregation was necessary, but ‘I’ll be the first to admit—we overuse it.’ Even modest reductions, he said, would require that they ‘change the culture’ of corrections, including the stance of the correctional officers union. And, he added, ‘we can’t make changes without funding, without the legislature and the public.’”

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NEWS: New York Prisons: A Human Rights Crisis in Our Own Backyard

February 20, 2013 by

By Elena Ladriscina, Legal Fellow, NYCLU. Reprinted from the ACLU Blog of Rights.

upstatenycluNew York has allowed a human rights crisis to fester in its prisons. Each day, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision subjects nearly 4,500 prisoners to solitary confinement and other forms of extreme isolation in prisons around the state. Locked down for 22 to 24 hours a day, for months or even years, without meaningful human interaction or programming, these individuals experience severe pain and suffering. Some even contemplate suicide. The majority of individuals subjected to these conditions are black. Juveniles, the elderly and people with physical disabilities, cognitive impairments and mental illness are subjected to this nightmarish regime. Not the slightest effort is made toward rehabilitation: Nearly 2,000 prisoners each year are released straight from extreme isolation to the streets.

International human rights law prohibits these policies and practices. On Tuesday, more than 30 human rights, civil rights, faith-based and mental health organizations sent a letter to Juan E. Méndez, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, requesting that he investigate the New York State solitary confinement system and take all necessary steps to end the mistreatment of prisoners and bring New York in line with international human rights law and standards.

[Read more…]

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NEWS: “Sick and in Solitary” on Rikers Island

February 19, 2013 by

By Maura R. O’Connor. Excerpted from The New York World.

rikers1Last summer, a 25-year-old robbery suspect at Rikers Island took a ball of concentrated soap meant to clean his jail cell and swallowed it. Jason Echeverria had been held for two months inside the Department of Correction’s Mental Health Assessment Unit for Infracted Inmates, where the confined typically spend 23 hours a day on lockdown. By swallowing the soap, Echeverria hoped to spring himself from his confinement; instead, for 20 minutes a corrections supervisor ignored his condition as he became violently sick and eventually died from the poisoning. The city’s medical examiner has found that the lack of immediate medical treatment constituted a homicide.

While Echeverria was being held in punitive segregation, New York City Department of Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro was assuring the city’s Board of Correction, which monitors her agency, that a long-awaited blueprint for dealing with the growing ranks of mentally ill at Rikers was nearing completion.

[Read more…]

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NEWS: State Bar Association Calls on New York to “Profoundly Restrict” Its Use of Solitary Confinement

February 18, 2013 by

By Jean Casella and James Ridgeway. Reprinted from Solitary Watch.

upstate 1The New York State Bar Association last month passed a resolution calling for a dramatic transformation and curtailment of solitary and other forms of isolated confinement it its state prisons and city jails. The strongly worded resolution, written by NYSBA’s Civil Rights Committee, cites “the damage caused by prolonged solitary confinement and the ability to ensure prison and public safety without resorting to its use.”It urges the New York State legislature to hold hearings on solitary confinement, and on Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the state and city departments of corrections to undertake sweeping changes in their prison practices.

After laying out the problem, the document presents the following resolution:

RESOLVED, that the New York State Bar Association calls upon the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) and New York City Department of Correction (DOC) to profoundly restrict the use of long-term solitary confinement, by adopting clear and objective standards to ensure that prisoners are separated from the general prison population only in very limited and very legitimate circumstances and only for the briefest period and under the least restrictive conditions practicable.

[Read more…]

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NEWS: Human Rights, Mental Health and Faith-Based Organizations ask U.N. to Investigate Solitary Confinement in New York Prisons

February 18, 2013 by

Press release. Reprinted from the New York Civil Liberties Union site.

UNFebruary 5, 2013 — The New York Civil Liberties Union – joined by more than three dozen representatives from human rights, civil rights, mental health and faith-based organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture – today submitted a letter to the United Nations requesting an investigation into the use of solitary confinement in New York State prisons.

The letter – addressed to U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Méndez – alleges that New York’s use of extreme isolation and deprivation is inhumane, unsafe, arbitrary and implicates fundamental human rights protections, including “the right to be protected from torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” and “the right to be free from discrimination.”

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NEWS: NYCLU Lawsuit Challenges New York State’s Use of Solitary Confinement

February 17, 2013 by

Press release. Reprinted from the New York Civil Liberties Union site.

barsDecember 6, 2012 — The New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York prison official’s system-wide policies and practices governing solitary confinement that are responsible for the arbitrary and unjustified use of extreme isolation on thousands of individuals incarcerated in New York’s prisons every year.

The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiff, Leroy Peoples, spent 780 days locked in tiny, barren cell the size of an elevator with another prisoner for 24 hours a day as punishment for misbehavior that involved no violence and no threat to the safety or security of others.

“New York’s prison authorities permit the use extreme isolation – one of the harshest punishments one human can impose on another – as a disciplinary tool of first resort for violating almost any prison rule, no matter how minor,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “This cruel and arbitrary punishment endangers prisoners and corrections officials alike, and it decreases safety in our prisons and communities.”

[Read more…]

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