TESTIMONY OF THE FORTUNE SOCIETY: Banning solitary confinement in city jails

Good afternoon, Council Committee Chair Rivera and Members of the Committee:

My name is Andre Ward. I am the Associate Vice President of The David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy at the Fortune Society. The Fortune Society is a 55-year-old organization that supports successful reentry from incarceration and promotes alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities. We do this by believing in the power of people to change; building lives through service programs shaped by the experiences of our participants; and changing minds through education and advocacy to promote the creation of a fair, humane, and truly rehabilitative justice system.

The New York City Department of Correction may no longer call how it isolates people “solitary confinement” on paper, but that is precisely what is done in practice. I say this as someone who, decades ago, spent over three years on Rikers Island, and 13 years in state prisons. I tell you that locking a human being in a cage that is supposed to be used as a decontamination shower and that is too small to sit down in, for hours on end, is a form of solitary confinement. Confining a human being in what is called a “de-escalation unit” for over 30 hours is a form of solitary confinement. At Rikers Island, these uses of solitary confinement by other euphemistic names killed 25-year old Brandon Rodriguez last year, and 31-year old Elijah Muhammad this July.

Solitary confinement is simply torture by another name. It is well-documented that it causes immediate and lasting physical and psychological damage to the people subjected to those brutal conditions. In the context of the continuing humanitarian crisis in our city jails, as with Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Muhammad, solitary confinement is deadly. Banning solitary confinement as proposed by this important bill, Intro. 549, is critical to save lives.

It is particularly important to pass this bill given two aspects of the current disturbing state of affairs in our city jails: First, over half of the people held by DOC have a mental health diagnosis. As of July of this year, a monthly average of 18% of people in our city jails have a serious mental illness. People with mental health conditions are especially vulnerable to the harms caused by extended isolation from others.7Brandon Rodriguez had a known history of mental illness and yet was locked in isolation in a shower cage for hours, while suffering from an orbital fracture, and there took his own life. An important component of the bill under consideration today is that it would require mental health staff to check frequently on people held for de-escalation purposes, or who are confined to their cells during emergency lock-ins. This is critical because the trauma caused by isolation is also compounded for those who are not provided timely access to mental health care, a failure for which DOC was held in contempt in May of this year. Our jails have become mental health facilities that do not provide adequate care and instead inflict trauma. In such a setting, we must ensure that the inhumane practice of solitary confinement, by any name, is outlawed.

Second, as has been well-documented before this Committee, in Board of Corrections hearings, federal court proceedings, and reports about the deaths of 14 people who had been held at Rikers Island, the culture of neglect and dysfunction in our city jail has reached what should be an unthinkable level. This is reflected in the continuing crisis of uniformed staff not reporting to work or being at their assigned posts, as happened in the case of Kevin Bryan, who just last week hung himself on a unit that lacked full staffing. This is most starkly reflected in the shocking behavior of staff who watched Michael Nieves bleed out, for ten minutes, after he cut his own throat, while he was housed on a unit for people with serious mental illness. In this utter chaos, and in the face of this shocking behavior, any steps that can be taken to prevent further deaths must be taken immediately – and that includes banning solitary confinement.

I also urge this Committee to follow the facts, not fear, and not baseless claims that solitary is necessary for maintaining order in a disordered system. Studies have shown that there are humane ways to prevent people in custody from engaging in violence. In addition, as described above, simply ensuring that uniformed staff are at their assigned posts, performing their assigned duties, is an obvious and critical first step to maintaining order. Opponents of this bill may claim that DOC needs more staff, and more financial resources – but that is simply not the case. As of last month, 12% of DOC staff were out for medical reasons – that is double the percentage who were out for nearly the entire year before the pandemic. And 8% of staff have been designated as unable to work directly with people in custody. 831 DOC staff were not coming to work in August, while 559 were unable to be assigned where they are most needed, working with people in DOC custody – that is almost 1400 total staff. With no disrespect to officers who are actually unable to work due to illness or injury, the abuse of overly generous sick leave has been well-documented. That must lead us to question any claims that additional staffing resources are needed. As the federal court monitor in the ongoing Nunez litigation noted, the DOC has “one of the richest staffing ratios in the country.” This is not a question of resources, but a question of the will to treat people humanely.

For all of these reasons, the Fortune Society strongly supports the passage of Introduction 549. We thank the supermajority of Councilmembers and the Speaker for supporting this bill. And we thank you, Chair Rivera, and this Committee for holding this hearing. The lives of our fellow New Yorkers depend on it.