Democrat Senator Gillibrand representing New Yorkers at the Congress just announced her support for the President’s Iran deal. Brave! I guess she would lose the next election. There are 1.7 million Jewish New Yorkers, more than any place outside of Israel, and voicing regular support for Israel is standard political practice for both Republicans and Democrats in New York.
The Browder tragedy highlights all of New York’s challenges and high-need reforms
The Browder tragedy highlights all of New York’s challenges and high-need reforms
Kalief Browder, Photo by TomoNews
Published By The Legislative Gazette– Accused of stealing a backpack, 16-year-old Kalief Browder was sent to Rikers Island to await trial because his family could not afford a $3,000 cash bail set by the judge. Browder spent three years in pretrial detention, with 700 of those days in solitary confinement. He was finally released in 2013, but 22-year-old Browder, suffering from trauma he experienced in jail, hanged himself June 6 in his mother’s Bronx home.
If an accused person is not recognized as a threat to society, he or she can be released from jail by a bail order granted by a judge in the form of cash or a bond, a legal document or pledge provided by the authorized individual guaranteeing that the defendant will appear in the court.
“New York failed Kalief Browder,” said Sen. Daniel Squadron, D-Carroll Gardens. “Nothing we do will undo the tragedy of his death, but his experience has to be a call to action.”
Sen. Daniel Squadron, Photo by The Legislative Gazette
In the Bronx, where Browder was arrested, a majority of indigent defendants spend months in jail waiting for trial because they cannot afford to pay cash bail, according to Squadron who introduced “Kalief’s Law” (S.5988) last week to ensure cases go to trial in a reasonable time frame.
“Kalief’s incarceration was an outrage, and the state law meant to guarantee his right to a speedy trial failed,” Squadron said. “We are introducing Kalief’s Law to reform the broken process that kept him in jail.” The bill is being sponsored in the Assembly by Jeffrion Aubry.
The legislation would close a legal loophole that forces defendants to endure significant delays before trial, even while in jail, despite the time limits established by law, according to Squadron. This change would limit delays by prosecutors and the court so that defendants are afforded their constitutional right to a speedy trial.
Browder’s story is not unique. Ronald Spear was also a pre-trial detainee when he was beaten to death in 2012 by a Rikers Island correction officer who now faces a charge of deprivation of civil rights for the beating, as well as obstruction of justice charges, according to Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“No one should be forced to stay in jail while waiting to be heard in a court of law because of an outdated practice that keeps the poor behind bars when they could safely await trial at home with their families,” said Cherise Fanno Burdeen, executive director of the Pretrial Justice Institute, a national organization funded in part by the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the United States Department of Justice.
Photo Courtesy by Ronald Spear’s Family
The Browder tragedy highlights all of New York’s challenges and high-need reforms, including raising the age of criminal responsibility, stopping overuse of solitary confinement, use of cash bail and wrongful convictions.
“The responsibility for the death of Kalief Browder should be placed squarely where it belongs, not on some abstract criminal justice system that has failed all New Yorkers, but on the leaders who lack the determination to change that system,” said President of JustLeadershipUSA Glenn Martin, a criminal justice reform advocate.
In hopes of reducing the number of minors in adult prisons, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is leading a campaign to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18. New York and North Carolina are the only two states in the nation that prosecute adolescents as adults when they turn 16 years of age.
“We must get 16- and 17-year-olds out of the state facilities and transfer them to family court instead of criminal court,” Cuomo said during a press conference following a tour of the Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie.
According to the Raise the Age campaign, research suggests adolescents are closer to children than adults when it comes to cognitive development because the human brain is not fully formed until age 25.
Governor Cuomo in a tour of the Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie
Approximately 50,000 adolescents are arrested and face the possibility of prosecution as adults in criminal court each year, according to Raise the Age.
“Kalief’s death was a wholly preventable tragedy,” Burdeen said
The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, said at an April hearing in Albany that state prisons are currently engaging in torture of prisoners through the use of solitary confinement.
“Any imposition of solitary confinement beyond 15 days constitutes torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment,” said Mendez, noting the practice of solitary confinement worldwide is contrary to rehabilitation and can constitute torture.
Democratic lawmakers — including Sen. Bill Perkins and Assemblymembers Daniel O’Donnell, Jeffrion Aubry and Nily Rozic — have introduced several bills that aim to address the overuse of solitary confinement in prisons.
Democratic lawmakers — including Sen. Bill Perkins and Assemblymembers Daniel O’Donnell, Jeffrion Aubry and Nily Rozic — have introduced several bills that aim to address the overuse of solitary confinement in prisons.
In state prisons, on any given day, there are approximately 3,800 people in one form of isolation, according to the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, which has had the authority since 1846 to visit the state’s prisons and to report its findings and recommendations to the Legislature, other state policymakers and the public.
In addition to the overuse of solitary confinement, public defenders said New York also has an “unfair” system of bail. Only 12 percent of defendants in New York City make bail and leave court in all cases when bail is set at arraignment, according to the Pretrial Justice Institute, a national organization funded in part by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which is a component of the Office of Justice Programs within the United States Department of Justice.
“No one should ever be jailed because they are poor, let alone while they are presumed innocent,” said Burdeen, who has recently created a petition calling on Gov. Cuomo to end cash bail in the state. The petition has already garnered over 20,000 signatures.
“We call on Gov. Cuomo to end the use of cash bail in New York immediately to avoid future tragedies like the death of Kalief Browder,” Burdeen added.
In American jails today, 6-in-10 people have not been convicted of their charges, according the Pretrial Justice Institute, while the others spend months waiting for trial.
New York’s judiciary system also has the highest rate of wrongful convictions after Texas in the United States, according to Bill Bastuk, president of It Could Happen to You, which recently held a lobby day to raise awareness of the issue.
There were 275 exonerations resulting from wrongful conviction in the state over the last 124 years, according to the Wrongful Conviction Database. The study shows individuals in 109 cases were convicted because of official misconduct in the state’s judicial system.
Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, and Assemblyman Nick Perry, D-Brooklyn, have introduced for the second consecutive year a bill (S.24/A.1131) that would create a public commission specifically designed to investigate complaints of misconduct by prosecutors.
Photo by AP
Let’s celebrate Ramadan through art and peace without any Jihad
Muslims say Ramadan is a God’s gift. Ramadan 2015 begins in the evening of Wednesday, June 17 and ends in the evening of Friday, July 17. However, fasting has begun for Middle Easter children since the war started in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Anyway, Ramadan can be a good opportunity for art, Please forget about Jihad and celebrate it with art and peace.
Buddha told me
I was looking for peace. I met Buddha accidentally on purpose in several occasions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery,New Haven, Connecticut; and Chin Swee Caves Temple, Genting Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia. I have heard him when I was a child and when I was a teenager and just a couple days ago. I have heard him in the East and the West. However, when or where does not matter at all. He always tells us about peace: “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without,” Buddha said.
آب در کوزه و ما گرد جهان می گردیم
Iran to USA or I ran to USA?
It can be “I ran to USA” and also it can be “from Iran, a country in the Middle East, to USA.”
I have been a journalist in Iran since 2007. I ran from Iran to the United States accidentally in purpose!
I do love journalism and I can’t give it up at all.
Now, I practice journalism in the United States and enjoy it because of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I appreciate this opportunity given to me through working hard in the New World.
Lawmakers urge Skelos to step down
Published at The Legislative Gazette
New York Senate Leader Dean Skelos
Following New York Senate Leader Dean Skelos’s arrest Monday for allegedly taking bribes, Senate Democratic Conference Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and others are urging Republican colleagues to ask for his resignation as the head of the Senate.
“I cannot imagine him continuing to serve as leader as he deals with the cloud of corruption now effecting the top two Senate Republican leaders,” said Stewart-Cousins, referring to Skelos and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Thomas Libous, who is scheduled to stand trial in July on a felony charge of making false statements to the FBI about an alleged scheme to get his son a job at a Westchester County law firm in 2010.
She said the charges against Skelos are “deeply disturbing” and there are many pressing issues that “must” be addressed during the remainder of the legislative session, and the Republican majority should ensure that the Senate is not “bogged down in scandal.”
Skelos was charged Monday with six counts including conspiracy, extortion, and solicitation of bribes which stem from a federal investigation, according to officials. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in the complaint that Skelos “unlawfully” used his power and influence as Senate majority leader “repeatedly, to illegally enrich his son and indirectly, himself.”
After ex-Assembly Speaker Silver’s scandal just in few months ago, Albany shows more signs of a political cesspool; Senate Majority Leader Dean skelos was hit with six counts including conspiracy, extortion, and solicitation of bribes, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Monday.
“More specifically, the complaint, in multiple places, alleges that Dean Skelos’s support for certain infrastructure projects and legislation was often based, not on what was good for his constituents or good for New York, but rather on what was good for his son’s bank account,” Bharara added.
However, Skelos maintains he is innocent of the charges leveled against him.
“I am not saying I am just not guilty, I am saying that I am innocent. I fully expect to be exonerated by a public jury trial,” Skelos said Monday.
Republican Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor, East Fishkill, believes Skelos cannot continue as majority leader under the cloud of a corruption trial.
“He is entitled to the presumption of innocence and his day in court, but a federal indictment means he can’t continue as one of the most powerful people in New York State government,” said Lalor, noting if Skelos won’t step down, “Senate Republicans have an obligation to remove him.”
Also, Republican Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said Skelos should promptly resign his leadership position.
“I am confident that Skelos will do the right thing and it is the noble course of action,” Astorino said.
Former Hudson Valley state Senator Terry Gipson believes it is “imperative” that Skelos step down from his post as Majority Leader while he addresses these charges.
“It is my hope that his Republican colleagues will echo this call and that our state legislators will put politics aside and come together to address the campaign finance and ethics issues that malign our state government once and for all,” Gipson said.
Torture in New York Prisons
Published by The Legislative Gazette
A decade after the U.S. Army and the CIA were accused of human rights violations for overusing solitary confinements in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Tyrrell Muhammad — who spent approximately 2,555 days in solitary confinement in New York prisons — called on state lawmakers to end the widespread use of extreme isolation in state facilities.
“The United States is supposed to be a first class country,” said Muhammad, noting that state prisons should not violate the standards recommended by the United Nations. He says he has been in therapy since 2005 because of the effects of solitary confinement.
Tyrrell Muhammad in left Photo by Danyal Mohammadzadeh
“Any imposition of solitary confinement beyond 15 days constitutes torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment,” said the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez during an Albany public hearing last Wednesday. “The practice of solitary confinement worldwide is contrary to rehabilitation and can constitute torture.”
Democratic lawmakers met with experts and more than 100 advocates, including individuals with direct experience of solitary confinement, during an April 22 hearing to urge their Republican colleagues to approve legislation they say would curtail the use of solitary in New York prisons.
“The conditions that we keep people in should meet the standards of the United Nations and I hope the Republicans would support that idea,” Daniel O’Donnell, chair of Assembly Committee on Corrections, told The Legislative Gazette.
Photo by Danyal Mohammadzadeh
In state prisons, on any given day, there are approximately 3,800 people in one form of isolation, according the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, which has had the authority since 1846 to visit New York state’s prisons and to report its findings and recommendations to the Legislature, other state policymakers and the public.
O’Donnell agrees with the assessment.
“I have visited more than 23 prisons in the state. I can tell you that solitary confinement is overused in New York prisons. We need to change the way we use solitary,” said O’Donnell, D- Manhattan. O’Donnell supports several pieces of legislation that will address the overuse of solitary in prisons. “Following the Committee Against Torture’s report, it is all the more clear that the reforms contained within these bills are vital and urgent.”
O’Donnell said his office gets about 150 letters weekly from New York inmates who, by law, should not be in solitary confinement.
“If they don’t stop overusing it, we’ll take away their ability to use it,” O’Donnell said.
The hearing was led by Sen. Bill Perkins, a member of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee, and Assembly members Jeffrion Aubry, chair of the New York state Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus and the former Corrections chair; O’Donnell; and Nily Rozic, a member of the Committee on Correction.
Aubry, D-Corona, and Perkins, D-Harlem, are the lead sponsors of the Human Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement Act (A.4401/S.2659) which would limit the time an inmate can spend in segregated confinement; end the segregated confinement of vulnerable inmates who are under the age of 21, pregnant, or mentally ill; restrict the criteria that can result in such confinement; improve conditions of confinement; and create more humane and effective alternatives to such confinement.
“Inconceivably, we have a human rights crisis here in New York state, as over 5,000 individuals—many of whom are the most vulnerable and defenseless among us—are subject to state sanctioned torture, in the form of solitary confinement,” said Perkins, adding the time has come to urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to become involved in this issue.
In July 2014, the New York City Bar Association accused the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision of placing many of its residents in isolated confinement. The New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement says all 50 states are currently engaging in systematic torture of prisoners through the use of solitary confinement.
On the other hand, some Republican senators believe corrections officers should be able to use solitary confinement against dangerous inmates to help maintain a safe environment within the state prison system. Sen. Patrick Gallivan, chair of the Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, told The Legislative Gazette he is not aware of any form of torture by the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
Several of his colleagues concur.
“I disagree with the contention that there is systematic torture,” said Betty Little, R-Queensbury. “For prisoners who pose a persistent and high level of danger to other inmates and officers, solitary confinement is the best means of assuring others of their safety. It has to be an option.”
Sens. John DeFrancisco and Little, members of the Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, told The Legislative Gazette that the use of solitary confinement is an option that can be utilized by corrections officers as a way to cut down on violence perpetrated by gang members in the state prisons.
“Corrections officers need an option to remove a violent prisoner from the general population as long as the isolation is humane, it is a needed option,” said DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse.
New York has one of the lowest crime rates in the United Sates, and also has the lowest imprisonment rate of any large state, according to 2015-2016 Executive Budget. From 2004 to 2013, the crime rate in New York declined 15 percent, with a continued decline in the first six months of 2014. However, despite the decline in prison population, the climate inside the facilities has grown more dangerous say corrections officers and their allies in the Legislature.
“The trend seems to be fewer incarcerations, but those being sent to prison are more hardened and more dangerous,” Little said.
However, Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, who is the co-sponsor of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, believes confining prisoners to a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day without meaningful human contact or therapy is “cruel” and “unusual punishment.”
“It doesn’t benefit anyone to have inmates leaving prison worse off than when they went in,” Hoylman said. “If we can alter the behavior of the incarcerated through beneficial programming rather than sealing them in a room all day, we have a better chance that they will not re-offend.”
Also, O’Donnell believes New York’s prisons should be “places of rehabilitation, not counterproductive punishment.” He is the sponsor of bill A.1346 that would make New York prisons compliable with international human rights standards by adopting recommendations from the United Nations Committee Against Torture regarding the use of solitary confinement in American prisons.
The bill would require all solitary confinement sanctions be imposed as a measure of last resort, and for the minimum period necessary, and would ban solitary confinement for individuals under 21 years of age, and for those with mental illness and developmental disabilities.
Benjamin Van Zandt who entered prison at age 17 after a conviction for arson had a history of mental health problems and took his own life in November 2014 at the age of 21 while in solitary confinement in a Special Housing Unit at Fishkill, a medium-security prison in Dutchess County.
“If reforms had been in place months ago, our young and mentally ill son would probably be alive today,” said Alicia Barraza, Benjamin’s mother. “Isolated confinement is inhumane, especially for individuals that are vulnerable.”
In February 2014, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision agreed to an interim stipulation with the New York Civil Liberties Union in a potential class-action lawsuit about the use of solitary in the state prisons. Key components of the stipulation include creating alternative disciplinary units with some additional out-of-cell time for 16- and 17-year-olds and people with developmental disabilities; establishing a presumption against solitary confinement of pregnant women; and calling upon experts to offer recommendations for more comprehensive reforms.
“Disciplinary practices in New York’s prisons are more humane, more fair and progressive, and maintain safety and security,” DOCCS responded to a Legislative Gazette inquiry. “In addition, we continue to negotiate in good faith with the New York Civil Liberties Union on other potential changes beyond those we have already agreed to. Sen. Gallivan said in two separate 2014 court cases, the department agreed to greatly restrict the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates, those with developmental disabilities and for inmates under the age of 18.
Gallivan has recently sponsored two bills, S.435 and S.436, in the Senate which would codify restrictions regarding the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates, those with developmental disabilities and for inmates under the age of 18.
A related bill, A.1347, would exclude pregnant prisoners from solitary confinement in New York correctional facilities. The bill, sponsored by Rozic, was passed March 2015 by the Assembly.
“Knowing that excessive periods of isolation can lead to emotional, physical and psychological harm, we must continue to build on recent efforts to ban the use of solitary confinement as punishment,” said Rozic, D-Fresh Meadows.
New York prisoners’ rights and guards’ safety
New York prisoners’ rights and guards’ safety
The New York State Corrections Officers and Police Benevolent Association is going on the offensive in a new ad campaign urging lawmakers to provide more resources for prisons to keep prisoners and guards safe.
Even though crime is dropping, and the prison population is at its lowest level in years, the prisoners inside the walls are more dangerous than ever, say corrections officers and their allies in the Legislature.
“We are going to have some really dangerous situations unfold in our prisons if we don’t get serious about investing in staffing and the technological resources our officers need to take on the modern day challenge of incarceration,” said Mike Powers, president of NYSCOPBA, the union that represents more than 26,000 New York state employees and retirees from the Security Services Unit.
A Department of Corrections spokesperson notes that the agency has requested additional funding in the upcoming budget for more security personnel.
“The NYSCOPBA Executive Board’s decision to use member dues for a public campaign is within their right,” responded the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to the Legislative Gazette inquiry on recent NYSCOPBA’s ad campaign. “We respect that, but we remain committed to having an open and ongoing dialogue. For the upcoming fiscal year, DOCCS has submitted a recommendation to the Division of the Budget for an increase in security staffing.”
Many of the Republican senators serving on the Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee believe adequate staffing levels are the first step in making sure New York’s correctional facilities are safe.
“In addition to providing adequate staffing, it is critical that the men and women who work in such high-risk and stressful situations have access to the best training and latest equipment in order to ensure the safety of officers, staff and inmates,” Sen. Patrick Gallivan, chairman of the committee, told The Legislative Gazette in an exclusive interview.
“As a former state trooper and sheriff of Erie County, I know the job of a corrections officer is difficult and often dangerous, with violence inside our prisons all too common,” added Gallivan, R-Elma.
Sens. John DeFrancisco and Betty Little, members of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, also stressed the importance of staffing levels in interviews with The Legislative Gazette.
“With the increased rate of retirements of correction officers I believe more correction officers should be hired and at a rate that will be sufficient to compensate for the reductions of the current force,” said DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse.
“We need to ensure our officers have the resources and the staffing levels they need to stay safe and do a good job,” said Little, R-Queensbury.
Photo by AP
Gov. Andrew Cuomo had proposed a $28 million reduction in the Division of Criminal Justice Services but a 1.4 percent increase in Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the 2015-2016 Executive Budget over the previous year.
“Tell Albany we have to invest in the resources needed to protect our communities and our state,” states one of the advertisements created by NYSCOPBA.
Following the closure of several prisons in 2014, 473 security jobs were expected to be eliminated. However, as part of the 2014-2015 state budget, 275 corrections officers positions were approved, offsetting the projected job loss. As a result, only 198 jobs were eliminated.
This allowed 275 correction officers to transfer into funded positions at the remaining 54 correctional facilities, according to a statement released by DOCCS in November 2014. However, NYSCOPBA claimed, in a 2014 report, those positions, while critical to provide much needed support to prisons statewide, had not yet been filled, with no reasonable explanation.
The closure of four prisons in 2014 resulted in the elimination of 1,280 beds from operation and an annual savings of $30 million, according to 2014 Annual Report for the Assembly Committee on Correction.
“Prison closures have had an impact on the system as the officers and civilian staffs have had to adjust,” Little said. “I’ve also spoken with officers who have said over the past ten years the type of prisoner they are seeing is more dangerous. More are in gangs and that activity goes from the street to inside the prison walls.”
New York has one of the lowest crime rates in the United Sates, and also has the lowest imprisonment rate of any large state, according to 2015-16 Executive Budget. From 2004 to 2013, the crime rate in New York declined 15 percent, with a continued decline in the first six months of 2014. However, despite the decline in prison population the climate inside the facilities has grown more dangerous.
“The trend seems to be fewer incarcerations, but those being sent to prison are more hardened and more dangerous,” Little said.
Since 2010, the offender population has decreased by more than 4,000 inmates, but the number of reported assaults on correction officers increased by 30 percent, according NYSCOPBA.
“This trend does not surprise me,” said Sen. John Bonacic, R-Mount Hope, in an interview with the Legislative Gazette. “The [Cuomo] administration is more concerned with the prisoners’ rights than the safety of the corrections officers.”
Mid-Orange Correctional Facility which is located in Warwick, in Bonacic’s district, was closed by Gov. Cuomo in 2011.
“The closure of four correctional facilities has caused ‘double-bunking’ to occur in a cell in some prisons, and overcrowding in general at the other prisons. This creates a more stressful and hostile environment,” Bonacic said.
On the other hand, Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, chair of Committee on Correction, told The Legislative Gazette there is no evidence that indicates Cuomo’s administration concerned prisoners’ rights more than the safety of the correction officers.
“That’s ridiculous. I have no evidence … for them to draw this conclusion,” said O’Donnell, D-Manhattan. “I don’t believe there is any differentiation between this governor and previous governors that we had about how they view that. The conditions that we keep people in should meet the standards of the United Nations and I hope the Republicans would support that idea.”
O’Donnell sponsors a bill A.01346 that would make New York prisons compliable with international human rights standards by adopting recommendations from the United Nations Committee Against Torture regarding the use of solitary confinement in American prisons.
“I have visited 23 prisons. I can tell you that solitary confinement is overused in New York prisons. We need to change the way we use solitary,” O’Donnell said. “Following the Committee Against Torture’s report, it is all the more clear that the reforms contained within these bills are vital and urgent.
“New York’s prisons should be places of rehabilitation, not counterproductive punishment. The bill will contribute to that goal by making solitary confinement a true measure of last resort and banning its use for particularly vulnerable inmates who are under 21, pregnant, or mentally ill,” O’Donnell added.
In July 2014, the New York City Bar Association accused the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision of placing many of its residents in isolated confinement. In November 2014, the United Nations Committee Against Torture particularly mentioned New York as one of the six states which has a high rate of inmate deaths, resulting from extreme heat exposure while imprisoned in unbearably hot and poor ventilated prison facilities.
In addition, the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement claimed all states within the United States are currently engaging in systematic torture of prisoners through the use of solitary confinement.
“I disagree with the contention that there is systematic torture,” Little said. “For prisoners who pose a persistent and high level of danger to other inmates and officers, solitary confinement is the best means of assuring others of their safety. It has to be an option.”
Sens. DeFrancisco and Little told The Legislative Gazette use of solitary confinement is an option that can be utilized by correction officers against violence operated by gang members in the state prisons.
“Corrections officers need an option to remove a violent prisoner from the general population as long as the isolation is humane, it is a needed option,” DeFrancisco said.
There are as many as 50,000 gang members in New York, according to a report released by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office, based on 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment. United Blood Nation is a prison gang formed in 1993 within the New York City jail system on Rikers Island’s George Mochen Detention Center. Also, Trinitario was established in 1989 within the New York state prison system. Trinitario is a Hispanic organization formed in prison, providing protection and unity for Hispanic inmates within DOCCS prisons.
“Gang members in our prisons are clearly having an impact on the level of violence we are seeing at many facilities,” Gallivan said. “I believe the best solution is to make sure that the officers are properly trained and adequately equipped to deal with violent inmates.”
The senator said he is not aware of any form of torture by DOCCS. Gallivan has recently sponsored two bills, S.435 and S.436, in the Senate which would codify restrictions regarding the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates, those with developmental disabilities and for inmates under the age of 18.
“In two separate 2014 court cases, the department agreed to greatly restrict the use of solitary confinement for pregnant inmates, those with developmental disabilities and for inmates under the age of 18,” Gallivan said.
In February 2014, DOCCS agreed to an interim stipulation with the New York Civil Liberties Union and their incarcerated person clients in a potential class-action lawsuit about the use of solitary in the state prisons. Key components of the stipulation include creating alternative disciplinary units with some additional out-of-cell time for 16 and 17 year olds and people with developmental disabilities; establishing a presumption against solitary confinement of pregnant women; and calling upon experts to offer recommendations for more comprehensive reforms.
“Disciplinary practices in New York’s prisons are more humane, more fair and progressive, and maintain safety and security,” responded the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to the Legislative Gazette inquiry. “In addition, we continue to negotiate in good faith with the New York Civil Liberties Union on other potential changes beyond those we have already agreed to. Also, to the best of our knowledge, the United Nations Report about deaths resulting from extreme heat exposure was not about the New York state prison system.”
Bill S.435, sponsored by Gallivan in the Senate, provides that where the department of corrections knows that an inmate is pregnant; there shall be a presumption against placement in segregated confinement or other restricted confinement unless there are exceptional circumstances which would create an unacceptable risk to the safety and security of other inmates or staff. In addition, bill S.436 provides out-of-cell programming for adolescents.
Also, bill A01347, sponsored by Nily Rozic in the Assembly, would exclude pregnant prisoners from solitary confinement in New York correctional facilities.
“Knowing that excessive periods of isolation can lead to emotional, physical and psychological harm, we must continue to build on recent efforts to ban the use of solitary confinement as punishment,” said Rozic, D-Fresh Meadows, who is a member of Assembly Committee on Correction.
“Now that we have passed these bills through committee, we are another step closer to reforming New York’s correctional facilities and creating an environment that focuses on rehabilitation and safe re-entry,” Rozic said.
Ultimately, legislators and those who lobby for the rights of prisoners as well as the safety of corrections officers say they are fighting for the same goal: safer prisons.
“Inmates and everyone who works in our prison system have a right to a safe environment,” Gallivan said.
Concern over yet another proposed pipeline
Photo by AP
A proposed gas pipeline has mobilized environmental groups and state and local lawmakers along the Interstate 88 corridor who oppose it.
The Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline would be built alongside the recently approved Constitution Pipeline. It has been proposed by Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, which is a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan.
Environmental groups and community leaders from Schoharie County say the proposal poses a direct threat to hundreds of waterways and several important forest blocks, requires the seizure of private land through eminent domain, and encourages more fracking in Pennsylvania as gas companies take advantage of the increased transportation capacity to export fossil fuels abroad.
The construction of the Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline would connect Tennessee Gas pipelines in Pennsylvania with lines running east to west from central New York to Massachusetts and along the Connecticut border. The proposal is approximately parallel with the proposed route of the 124-mile Constitution Pipeline between Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania and Wright in Schoharie County, which was recently federally approved.
The Constitution Pipeline is considered an “open access pipeline,” which means local municipalities, public utilities and other third party providers are permitted to tap the pipeline to offer natural gas service.
Assemblyman Pete Lopez, whose district includes a part of six counties that would be affected by the pipelines, believes the Kinder Morgan pipeline would only create duplication and would cause more controversy and concern among residents.
“It appears to be a gross duplication of the route already approved by the federal government for the Constitution Pipeline,” Lopez said.
Lopez, R-Schoharie, last week called on Kinder Morgan to abandon its plans to seek federal approval to build a natural gas pipeline alongside the Constitution Pipeline.
“When I questioned [Representatives of Kinder Morgan] about the duplication, they offered me no real defense,” Lopez said. “Their simple answer was that they were in competition with Constitution and that their proposed pipeline would be a feeder line that would provide them with access to low cost shale gas from Pennsylvania which they would then distribute through their existing network.”
A third company, Leatherstocking Gas Company LLC, has agreed to install four interconnects along the Constitution Pipeline’s route to facilitate local natural gas service. It plans to develop natural gas distribution systems in Central New York where there is no natural gas service.
An example of Leatherstocking’s activity is their plan to deliver natural gas service to the Amphenol Corporation, which is located in Sidney in Delaware County.
After the severe flooding in Sidney in 2006 and again in 2011, Lopez pressured the Cuomo Administration put an emergency relief package to keep Amphenol in Sidney. An important part of the package was to secure natural gas from the Constitution Pipeline, which could yield annual energy savings to the company and allow it to provide well-paying jobs to the area as well as helping to stabilize the local and regional economy suffering from recurring floods.
“The Amphenol example has real meaning,” Lopez said. “The availability of low cost natural gas will help offset the losses from the floods and offer the potential for real energy cost savings to local businesses, home owners and institutions throughout the region, helping them to be sustainable and continued contributors to the economy and quality of life.”
On March 5, Kinder Morgan announced its subsidiary, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, has finalized plans for its anchor shippers for the market path component of the proposed Northeast Energy Direct Project.
“We are pleased that a broad range of New England market participants have declared, through binding contractual commitments, the clear need for an expansion of TGP to provide a transformative solution to reduce energy costs and enhance gas and electric reliability in New England,” said KMI East Region Natural Gas Pipelines President Kimberly Watson.
On the other hand, studies show a lack of existing pipeline capacity was not the cause of last year’s high energy prices in the northeast. A 2015 U.S. Department of Energy study shows 46 percent of U.S. pipeline capacity is unused. Some experts believe more pipelines are not the solution to high energy costs in the state.
“It’s shameful that Kinder Morgan is proposing this pipeline in light of the cumulative impacts it will have on our communities and environment,” said Wes Gillingham, a co-founder and the program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, an environmental advocacy organization.
“It’s outrageous and unacceptable that the FERC continuously rubber stamps these projects, effectively aiding and abetting the fossil fuel industry and failing in its responsibility to safeguard our communities and natural resources. We don’t need new pipelines. We need a fossil fuel freeze, now,” Gillingham added.
During a rally last week, opponents of the proposal said it would carry many of the same risks as fracking itself does, including the harmful effects of air and water contamination. Speakers including anti-fracking activist and filmmaker Josh Fox, and also featured information such as the unsafe and toxic aspects of fracked gas, the risks of inevitable pipeline accidents and the notion that New Yorkers should not allow fracked gas to be transported across the state.
“It is official New York state policy that fracked gas is bad — bad for public health, bad for the environment, bad for everyone,” Fox said. “We should extend the same moral and legal protections to our fellow citizens in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and points west by stopping the ridiculously named ‘Constitution Pipeline’ and asserting our right to a clean future without fossil fuels or the human right violations that their extraction causes.”
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