Mayor Defends Sending Youths to Jails With Solitary Confinement

The city has banned solitary confinement for [incarcerated individuals] under 22, a policy that helped cement Mayor de Blasio’s national reputation as a criminal-justice reformer. Yet late Monday the mayor defended the city’s practice of “occasionally” sending [incarcerated individuals] who pose a security or safety risk to county jails where they can be held in solitary confinement.

His remarks were in response to a Times investigation this week that found that transfers of young [incarcerated individuals] spiked in 2015, the year the ban was implemented, and that this year alone eight [incarcerated individuals] under 21 are being held in isolation in a jail outside of the city.

JoAnne Page, president of the Fortune Society, which helps [formerly incarcerated individuals] make the transition back into society, commended the mayor’s overall efforts, but criticized the practice of transferring young [individuals] to places like Albany County where they can be held in solitary confinement.

“I think it’s wrong,” she said. “They should be doing something different in a way that is keeping them safe and not being placed in solitary confinement in upstate New York.”