New York City mulling end to solitary confinement

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced plans to eliminate the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jail system on Tuesday.

“We’re going to go farther than any jail system in America by creating positive alternatives,” de Blasio said at a news briefing. “Working with our Board of Corrections, we found a plan that will work and that will provide a safe environment for those who are incarcerated and officers alike.”

The corrections board proposed a plan that will replace solitary confinement with a three-level progression model, known as the Risk Management Accountability System, which “aims to ensure that people will be provided with the support they need to successfully reenter general population and, eventually, their communities,” according to a statement from the mayor.

The corrections board, according to Reuters, suggested replacing solitary confinement on Nov. 1.

Specifically, the proposal will allow inmates a minimum of 10 hours outside of their cell, with the ability to socialize with at least one other person, in addition to five hours of daily programming, and it will end the use of non-individualized restraints, the city said.

Inmates would also receive support through case managers, individualized behavioral support plans, and periodic reviews, the city said.

“Working with our Board of Corrections, we found a plan that will work, that will provide a safe environment for those who are incarcerated and officers alike, but will end the scourge of solitary confinement,” de Blasio said.

The proposal is subject to a public comment period. De Blasio, according to Bloomberg, said he hopes that the city’s move to end solitary confinement will prompt an elimination of the tactic nationwide.

The Legal Aid Society, an organization that defends the city’s impoverished criminal defendants, disapproved of the new proposal, according to Reuters, calling it a “re-branding” that “replicates some of the most inhumane features of the current system,” including chaining inmates to desks.

The proposed reforms are building on changes implemented in 2015, when the city did away with solitary confinement for inmates aged 16 to 21 and individuals with a serious mental illness.

These adjustments came after the death of Kalief Browder, a teenager from the Bronx who, after spending two of his three years at the Rikers Island jail in solitary confinement, died by suicide two years after being released, Reuters wrote.