Johnson urges mayor to end solitary confi nement
BY MARK HALLUM
City Council Speaker
Corey Johnson put Mayor Bill
de Blasio on the spot for what
has been seen as an attempt
by the administration to hamper
discussions in regard to
ending solitary confinement
in detention facilities.
The Oct. 25 letter from
Johnson references media
reports from THE CITY in
which a Board of Correction
(BOC) member claimed there
was pressure from Mayoral
staff to slow the roll in the
effort to establish new rules
for how detainees can be
housed.
“I was disheartened that
less than a week after City
Hall declared a beginning
to the end of mass incarceration,
media reports and a
statement made by a member
of the BOC during Tuesday’s
public meeting indicate
that your staff pressured the
BOC to delay the rule-making
process to end solitary
confinement and other forms
of restrictive housing akin
to solitary confinement,”
Johnson said.
Dr. Robert Cohen, a physician
who serves on the BOC
said at a recent meeting that
the body postponed a vote on
new restrictions to solitary
confinement because of an alleged
effort by the city to block
the certification process of the
board’s potential vote.
The vote will now take
place at an Oct. 31 meeting of
the BOC, according to THE
CITY.
A spokeswoman for the
Mayor’s office, however, argued
that the efforts by the
administration were not necessarily
overstepping any
boundaries on account of the
fact that, though the BOC is
independent, the city would
ultimately have to carry out
any new policies voted on.
“New York City is a national
leader in reforming
punitive segregation and humane
correctional practices,”
a statement from City Hall
read. “Since 2014, we’ve seen
the most sweeping punitive
segregation reforms of any
administration in history. We
are actively working with the
board and the department of
correction to further restrict
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson at an Oct. 17 press conference
on the vote to approve four borough-based jails in the city.
punitive segregation and
we expect the Board to take
action this week.”
The mayor’s office additionally
felt as though there
had not been ample time to review
the new rules, and called
for the vote to be postponed.
Johnson’s letter comes just
days after the City Council
voted on measures to approve
the building of four boroughbased
Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
jails over the course of
the next seven years under
two ULURP applications.
An Oct. 17 press conference,
just hours before the
vote was locked down, saw
the speaker and other city
council member who were
part of the effort draft an
outline of the jails before design
call the vote an historic
“once in a lifetime opportunity”
to close jails on Rikers.
The last time such an effort
to change the way the detains
people took place in the 1980s
during the Dinkins administration
and was ultimately
unsuccessful.
Johnson’s office sees the
number of people in Department
of Corrections lock-up
to drop as low as 3,300 citywide
once justice reform efforts
are implemented in Albany
such as the abolition of
cash bail. Detainees unable
to afford bail accounts for a
majority of those held in Rikers
for extended periods of
time.
Ending solitary confinement
is the next item on the
agenda for Johnson.
“I visited a solitary confinement
unit on Rikers Island
earlier this month and
was appalled at the conditions
there. The need to begin
public discussion cannot
be overstated,” Johnson
concluded.
Reach reporter Mark Hallum
by e-mail at mhallum@
schnepsmedia.com or by
phone at (718) 260–4564.
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