NY agrees to settlement on solitary confinement

As part of a far-reaching legal settlement, NY has agreed to a major overhaul in the way solitary confinement is administered in the state’s prisons, with the goal of significantly reducing the number of inmates held in isolation, cutting the maximum length of stay and improving their living conditions.

The 79-page agreement ends a lawsuit filed by New York’s ACLU chapter, which accused one of the largest prison systems in the country of using inhumane and torturous methods in dealing with prisoners.

“We’ll see the beginning of a converstion of Upstate Correctional Facility from a prison that can only accomodate solitary confinement to something that has the beginnings of more rehabilitative features”, Pendergass said.

The state plans to allocate $62 million toward reforms, which will include everything from converting solitary confinement units into spaces with group learning rooms and outdoor spaces to almost halving the number of rules that when broken, can send inmates to isolation. “This groundbreaking agreement with the NYCLU should serve as a model for other states across the nation to follow in reforming the use of solitary confinement”.

The Times also notes that the agreement gives the New York Department of Corrections three months to stop feeding inmates in solitary confinement an infamously terrible food known as “the loaf”, which NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman described as “notorious”, “indigestible” and “worse than not eating at all”. Mualimm-ak, who worked with the NYCLU on the reform package, spent five years in solitary confinement himself, and is a vocal reform advocate.

It will apply to all 54 prisons that are part of the state’s sprawling corrections system, which houses about 53,000 inmates. Under the settlement, they will be allowed to leave their cells and spend their recreation time with others on the solitary block for two hours, three times a week.

There was no immediate comment from the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, which represents the officers at the state’s prisons.

For the first time, according to the civil liberties union, inmates will be able to make telephone calls, but only once every 30 days for those in long-term isolation. “The department is committed to retraining 20,000 staff members and all new recruits”.

What do the corrections officers say?

“While we have not had the opportunity to review the details of this settlement, our state’s disciplinary confinement policies have evolved over decades of experience, and it is simply wrong to unilaterally take the tools away from law enforcement officers who face risky situations on a daily basis”, Powers said in a statement.

Campbell is a reporter with the Gannett Albany bureau.