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.
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