Category: Rikers

WSJ: New York City Council Eyes Bill to End Solitary Confinement 

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A solitary confinement cell at New York City’s Rikers Island jail. The city council is set to begin fast-tracking legislation this week to end the practice. PHOTO: BEBETO MATTHEWS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Rich Calder

Originally published on December 8, 2020 in the Wall Street Journal.

Nearly six months after Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged to end solitary confinement as a means of punishment in New York City’s jail system, the city council this week is set to begin fast-tracking the process by reviewing new legislation to halt the controversial practice.

Councilman Daniel Dromm, a Queens Democrat, is introducing a bill at Thursday’s council meeting that would prohibit inmates from being locked in an isolated cell for violent offenses—except for up to four hours whenever it is necessary to “de-escalate immediate conflict,” according to a review of the legislation.

Under current city law, solitary confinement, also known as punitive segregation, allows inmates to be locked in cells up to 20 hours a day for serious offenses.

“Solitary confinement is torture in the truer sense of the word,” Mr. Dromm said in an interview Tuesday. “Depriving people of human contact for long periods of time is un-American, and we shouldn’t be engaging in it.”

The city’s Department of Correction referred requests for comment to the mayor’s office.

Mr. De Blasio in June pledged to have New York become the first major city in the country to halt solitary confinement, and he set up a panel to come up with a plan, but it has yet to announce any recommendations.

Since he took office in 2014, the city’s jail system has significantly reduced its use of solitary confinement and the overall inmate population. As of Monday, there were 65 people in punitive segregation, compared with a daily average of 567 in 2014, according to the Department of Correction.

Mayoral spokeswoman Avery Cohen said in a statement that the mayor’s office is committed to ending punitive segregation and would “continue working with stakeholders in government and those with lived experience to create a system that ensures the safety and well-being of staff and people in custody.”

Punitive segregation has come under fire from criminal-justice advocates who say it’s inhumane. But law-enforcement advocates, including the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, the union representing city correction staff, say it is a necessary deterrent to keep violent inmates in line and jails safe.

On Friday, the council’s committee on criminal justice will hold a hearing on the bill, which Mr. Dromm believes has enough support to become law.

The prompt scheduling of the hearing by Council Speaker Corey Johnson, a Democrat, only a day after the bill’s scheduled introduction has raised concerns among some council members and the correction officers union. They say the legislation is being rushed into law for political reasons at the risk of endangering jail staff.

Historically, bills usually sit for weeks or months—and sometimes more than a year—before the council speaker’s office schedules a hearing to field testimony from city agencies and other affected parties.

Both Mr. Johnson and Councilman Keith Powers, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the criminal justice committee, said they support ending solitary confinement.

“This bill is being heard because it’s ready and will continue to go through the legislative process,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Johnson said. “There’s nothing unusual about that.”

The legislation would still allow the city to keep detainees in other types of restrictive housing separated from a prison’s general population. Under the proposal, inmates in restrictive housing could leave their cells at least 10 hours a day, compared with 14 hours for a jail’s general population.

The city’s Rikers Island jail complex currently allows inmates in restrictive housing to leave cells for seven hours.

Six council members sent a letter to Johnson on Monday expressing “great concern regarding how quickly” the bill is getting a public hearing. The letter cited a series of recent attacks by inmates on correction officers.

“We firmly believe that rushing to pass a bill of this magnitude would have serious implications for the safety of our jails and could actually result in increased violence,” said the letter written by Robert Holden, a Queens Democrat, and cosigned by three Republicans and two other Democrats.

COBA President Benny Boscio Jr. accused Mr. Johnson of fast-tracking the bill into law in order to eclipse Mr. de Blasio politically on the issue.

“Speaker Corey Johnson is once again trying to beat the mayor in a race to ban punitive segregation entirely, which will only increase violent assaults on correction officers and non-violent inmates,” he said.

Read more here.

The City: De Blasio Promised Nearly Six Months Ago to End Solitary Confinement. So Where’s the Plan?

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Surveillance video shows Layleen Polanco being escorted to her solitary cell on Rikers Island before her death in 2019. Source: The City

By Rosa Goldensohn and Reuven Blau

Originally published in The City on December 6, 2020.

In June, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he would end solitary confinement in city-run jails, he said he expected a working group to give him recommendations on how to do it “in the fall.”

The chair of the Board of Correction, which makes the rules for city lockups, said on Oct. 21 that the plan would be presented “literally in the next several days” and then voted on by board members.

Now, with the new year approaching, details of the proposal have yet to be unveiled. The Board of Correction promises a plan will be released before the end of the month.

“The City of New York and the Board of Correction, after hearing from persons with lived experience, understand that it is time to end solitary confinement in the New York City jail system,” Board Chair Jennifer Jones Austin said in a statement late last week.

“Such a complex undertaking requires meaningful planning and collaboration with the Department of Correction, the union and those with lived experience to ensure the result is a system that ensures the safety and well being of staff and people in custody,” she added.

A so-called punitive segregation unit inside the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island.

Meanwhile, the City Council could pass its own bill to end the practice of punishing people in jails for rule-breaking by imposing isolation for most of the day and night. Some 95 people were in so-called punitive segregation in city jails as of Thursday.

Bill sponsor Danny Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) told THE CITY he believes there is enough support in the Council to approve the measure.

“I think that there are enough people have been educated on this at this point to understand that solitary is torture,” he said.

The City Council is scheduled to hold a hearing on the subject Dec. 11.

Spurred by Polanco Death

Despite a growing consensus on the psychological harms of such confinement, New York would appear to be the first major city in the country to officially ban punitive segregation outright.

De Blasio announced the change in June, citing the case of 27-year-old Layleen Polanco, who died in a solitary cell on Rikers Island just over a year earlier.

Hundreds of people packed into Foley Square to hold a vigil for Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender woman who died in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, June 10, 2019. Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill last year limiting solitary stays to 20 days at a time, and no more than 30 days in a 60-day period.

In Chicago, Cook County Jail eliminated solitary and created a “special management unit” in its place. De Blasio previously ended solitary in the city for those under the age of 22.

In the five boroughs, solitary confinement is only allowed as a punitive measure in response to an infraction of jail rules.

A DOC captain in charge of adjudicating jailhouse infractions can dole out a sentence of up to 30 days “in the box.”

Administrative segregation, the isolation of inmates to smooth the running of the jail, is not allowed under a 2010 court ruling. But functionally, the punishments remove people who have done something violent from the general population for a period of time.

The correction officers’ union has long opposed limits on solitary, saying the tactic is needed to help keep the peace.

The city proposal will include an end to punitive segregation and an alternative way to deal with acts of violence in the jail, according to the Board of Correction.

The Council bill would also put time limits on other forms of what jailers call “restrictive housing.”

The challenge, Dromm said, is to eliminate solitary without allowing for loopholes.

Wary of Name Game

Incarceration reform efforts elsewhere have spawned replacements for solitary confinement units that critics say are merely solitary by another name.

In Canada, courts deemed prolonged solitary confinement unconstitutional. But in the “structured intervention” units meant to replace solitary, according to outside observers, prisoners often did not receive the time outside of their cell or “meaningful social contact” as promised.

Under New York State rules, local jails must allow those held in segregation four hours out of their cells daily.

But that time is not necessarily spent interacting with others. The State Commission allows showering time to count, for instance.

The city Department of Correction has also counted showering in its tally, as well as trips to the doctor and visiting time, though those do not necessarily reflect the actual daily schedule of people in segregation.

State prisons, which regularly hold people in solitary for months at a time, are not subject to the four-hour rule. Some prisoners are held alone 24 hours a day, with an hour out in a solo cage attached to their cell.

As of Dec. 1, some 1,173 inmates were serving a “Special Housing Unit” (SHU) disciplinary sanction in solitary cells across New York State prisons, officials said.

‘Meaningful Human Engagement’

A bill to restrict solitary in state prisons failed last year even though it had enough co-sponsors to pass on their votes alone. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders Carl Heastie and Andrea Stewart-Cousins quashed the measure in favor of a set of looser requirements that were then delayed.

The Dec. 11 hearing will include discussions of the de Blasio administration’s proposal and the City Council’s legislation to end solitary, according to Councilmember Keith Powers (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Criminal Justice committee.

“There’s a groundswell of support to end harmful solitary confinement policies in New York City jails,” he said in a statement. “This is a long-overdue conversation.”

Advocates against solitary, who put out their own plan to end the practice in city jails last year, said the Council action was “positive,” but that it should make sure to avoid “carve-outs.”

“The basic minimum standards in the city jails of 14 hours out-of-cell per day with access to meaningful human engagement and programming should apply to everyone,” Anisah Sabur of the #HALTsolitary Campaign said in a statement.

The union representing frontline city correction officers opposes scrapping solitary.

“With jail violence soaring in our jails year after year, it’s time for our elected officials to put safety and security first and empower us to separate violent offenders from non-violent offenders,” said Benny Boscio Jr., president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association.

Read more here.

NY1 – City Council Moves to End Solitary Confinement

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By Courtney Gross

Originally published by NY1 News on November 30, 2020.

“Let’s end solitary confinement all together,” Mayor de Blasio declared at the end of June from City Hall.

It’s been five months, and last week there were about 102 inmates locked in their cells for much of the day.

Now, the City Council is taking up the proposal.

“Solitary confinement as we know it will come to an end as we see it on Rikers island,” Queens Councilman Daniel Dromm told NY1 in an interview on Monday.

He introduced legislation to end the use of solitary confinement in city jails. The bill would allow correction officers to isolate inmates, but only for four hours to de-escalate immediate conflicts.

Currently, solitary confinement, sometimes called punitive segregation, keeps inmates locked in their cells for the vast majority of the day.

The new City Council proposal still allows the city to keep inmates in other types of restrictive housing. Under the City Council proposal, inmates in restrictive housing could leave their cells for 10 hours a day. Currently in similar housing units on Rikers, those inmates leave their cells for seven hours.

Supporters of the push, like Dromm, say there are other ways to punish detainees on Rikers.

“They need to come up with those alternatives: taking away commissary, restricting phone calls, whatever it may be,” Dromm said. “They have other things they can use to deal with that.”

Not surprisingly, the correction officers union disagrees.

“We have to have a mechanism in place to be able to segregate those inmates who are violent towards correction officers and towards nonviolent inmates,” said Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio.

Boscio says officers need to use solitary confinement to punish unruly detainees on Rikers Island. Otherwise, his team gets hurt.

The union started a new social media campaign last week to try to convince City Council to reverse course, detailing horrible violence against its members and targeting the council speaker.

“Our legislature has sacrificed us,” Boscio said. “Name a bill that Corey Johnson has put forth that benefits correction officers?”

Boscio had been a part of a working group created by the de Blasio administration this summer to come up with recommendations on how solitary confinement could be eliminated. Boscio left the group, unhappy with where it was going.

The city’s jail oversight and regulatory board, the Board of Correction, has received recommendations from that group and is working on new rules to end solitary confinement. Those rules could be approved while the council moves forward its legislation as well.

No matter what, it appears to be something Mayor de Blasio now wants to happen. A spokesperson for de Blasio said his office looked forward to working with City Council on how to put an end to solitary confinement.

See more here.

HuffPost: ‘Too Much Death’: This NYC Councilman Says He’s Lost 8 Friends To COVID

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Daniel Dromm’s district in Queens has become one of the epicenters of the pandemic in New York City, which itself is the epicenter of the virus in the world.

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By Christopher Mathias

Originally published in the Huffington Post on April 15, 2020

NEW YORK — As the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged New York City, so far killing over 10,000 people, it’s laid bare the harsh racial and social inequities in the five boroughs.

About 80% of the city’s frontline workers — grocery store cashiers, nurses, bus drivers, food delivery drivers — are Black or Latino. Look at a map of where they live in the city, and then compare it to a map of the most concentrated outbreaks of COVID-19, and you’ll see many of the same neighborhoods highlighted in red.

One of the hardest-hit working-class neighborhoods is Jackson Heights in Queens — one of the most diverse places on the planet. Daniel Dromm, who’s represented the neighborhood for 10 years in the city council, tweeted earlier this month that he’d already lost five friends in the pandemic, underscoring the desperate situation there.

WILLIAM ALATRISTE FOR NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL
Daniel Dromm, who represents Jackson Heights in Queens, says he’s lost eight friends in the pandemic.

Dromm talked to HuffPost about the growing food emergency in his community, how Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) needs to release people in state prisons now, the need for rent relief, and how, sadly, he’s lost even more friends over the last couple of weeks.

You call your district the “epicenter of the epicenter.” What makes your district specifically so vulnerable to all this? 

Well, we have a lot of service workers that live here, undocumented folks that live here, immigrants who are here, and oftentimes, we see that those folks are of lower income, and in order to survive, they have to live in overcrowded, illegally converted homes, which only makes the spread of COVID worse. So there’s really no place for many people who live in my community to self-isolate because sometimes they live 20 to 25 people in a house. We’ve seen this on numerous occasions here in the district.

So that closeness and that density in the neighborhood is, I think, one of the major contributing factors to COVID. Now, even those of us who are as fortunate as I am, I have a one-bedroom apartment for myself, there’s still the density of the neighborhood so that when you walk down on 37th Avenue, which is kind of like one of the main strips in Jackson Heights, it’s very hard to not bump into somebody or meet somebody that wants to talk.

That was always the case before COVID and in a sense, it was very quaint, very nice, because it’s kind of like a small town in the big city. But of course, that type of interaction between people as well is another contributing factor to the spread of COVID.

So something that for years we liked about the neighborhood, which was that social gathering and connections, now we’re being forced to socially distance, and that’s something we in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst are unfamiliar with. And so I think the density, the poverty, the lack of health care, all of those things have been contributing factors to the spread of the virus.

What is the most urgent thing your constituents need from the state or federal government that they’re not getting right now? 

So it’s kind of changed a little bit. Elmhurst Hospital seems to be a little bit better off than it was. Not much, because every single bed is taken — 545 beds taken at Elmhurst. But my on-the-ground type of feeling is that people now are seeking food.

A number of the supermarkets in the neighborhood had closed down, including Patel brothers, two Asian supermarkets on Broadway, most of the fruit stands and food stores along 37th Avenue closed down, so people were short of food simply by virtue of stores closing, but then again on top of that, you have those who can’t even afford it anymore because they’ve lost their job.

DAVID DEE DELGADO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Dozens of people stand in line outside of Seatide Fish & Lobster market to purchase fish on Good Friday on April 10, 2020, in Jackson Heights, Queens.

So people like taxicab drivers — I have a large constituency of cab drivers — they’re not really working anymore. Many of them are undocumented and don’t have access to SNAP benefits. So food has become last week’s and this week’s biggest issue to conquer. I was lucky that working with Grow NYC, I was able to get 300 boxes of food to be distributed at the United Sherpa Society started this week, and that’s going to last for another 12 weeks.

So finding food and getting access to food is an issue. And then even those who are fortunate enough to have an income or be able to pay for food are facing very, very long lines outside the supermarket, sometimes a block or two long, just waiting to get into the supermarkets that are open. So that is a big issue at this point.

Is there anything that D.C. or Cuomo in Albany can do to alleviate that problem?

So actually, I’m going to be having a conference call with Sen. [Chuck] Schumer and Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand and a few of the congressional delegates tomorrow, and that’s my major concern that I’m going to raise is, particularly for undocumented communities who are not eligible for SNAP benefits, what type of provisions are being made for them?

And also a number of food banks have closed in the area — because, one, of the volunteer shortage and two, because of the lack of food availability, but what type of provisions are going to be made for that?

So you were talking before about how this pandemic has kind of unmasked a lot of racial and economic inequalities that were already there, that maybe people in other neighborhoods or districts weren’t paying attention to. Being in the epicenter of the epicenter of this crisis, has it changed your worldview at all? Are there bigger changes that need to be made after all this is over? 

Yes, absolutely. I think what we have to do is really come to a realization: Who are our essential workers? OK. These folks that live in my district are the essential workers during this COVID crisis. They’re the aides in the hospitals, they’re the people who are doing the work in the restaurants. They’re the folks who are driving the buses and operating the trains. And so, you know, oftentimes when people think about essential workers, maybe they think of an elected official, maybe they think of some rich guy in Manhattan, whatever. But really what it comes down to are these people, our community, both documented and undocumented, who are risking their lives on a daily basis for everyone else, and to me, that’s something that’s really jumped out at me.

These delivery men, these delivery men who bring us our takeout orders. They’re essential, OK? They are essential to us and to the economy. And we have to look at that and in the future reward them with paid time off, sick days, etc., because we realize now how essential they are.

Gov. Cuomo has gotten a lot of accolades, and his poll numbers are up, and I was wondering if you thought that was deserved? 

You know, I have a real policy difference with Gov. Cuomo on the issue of how he has treated our New York state prisoners. They’re some of the most vulnerable people in the whole state because they are packed into prisons with very, very little to prevent the virus. They don’t have enough soap, they don’t have enough sanitizer, they don’t have masks, and the most insulting part of it is that the staff does! The corrections officers have that and have access to that but the poor people who are stuck in jail, don’t have access to any of that.

And like Rikers Island, I think today had 383 cases of COVID among the detainees, and I make a differentiation there between detainee and inmates because they haven’t been convicted yet, but upstate, upstate is where the governor has control, and he has done nothing, and he shot down reporters.

So I plead with the governor, to please release the — especially the elderly people who are in prison, and those who are near the end of their term, to release them from prison, because they should not be getting a death sentence simply because they are packed into these prisons. And ultimately, that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t deal with this issue immediately.

OK. And just to be clear, you’re saying he should release elderly people and people near the end of their term but would you even go further than that?

I would. I would look at all records of people who could potentially be eligible for relief. Because very few people in New York state prisons are on life terms, and there’s no death penalty, but by leaving them in prison at this point, you know, it’s really a matter of saving their lives. And so, the whole thing needs to be examined and we need a real change there. And overall, I think he has shown a lot of leadership, but this is one of the things that I think just sticks out in my mind. They have nowhere to go and it just to be looked at.

There’ve been some reports about there being an outbreak among homeless shelters at the moment, and also in NYCHA residences. What solutions do you see for those problems? 

Well, yeah, I mean, it’s very similar to the issue that we’re facing here in terms of overcrowding, within our immigrant community, and I’ve been pushing the mayor for about two and a half weeks now to open up these hotels and get people into hotels. There are enough hotels probably to house, I don’t know how many people really because I don’t have a grip on that, but to have a lot of people, let me put it that way.

And there’s been some hesitancy on the part of the De Blasio administration in that direction, although now they are finally moving in that direction…

The other thing I’m seeing here in the community is people who are in Elmhurst Hospital, they’ve been taken in because they have severe symptoms of the virus, or they have for four or five days, maybe a little longer, but then they’re released but they have no place to go to convalesce. So you know, they go back to their overcrowded conditions where somebody else is infected and who knows, they could infect somebody else or whatever. And in some instances where people don’t even want them back into the overcrowded homes to begin with.

So we’ve been working with Mitch Katz, the head of Health and Hospitals, to at least get those folks who are being released with nowhere to go, to be aware that there is now going to be implemented this program of the availability of a hotel room for a period of convalescence. So that is supposed to be happening as of today.

What needs to be done that’s not being done when it comes to rent?

I think we have to have a rent freeze and the mayor has called for that by the Rent Guidelines Board, and I think there need to be some federal dollars because even if we have a rent freeze, it’s still not going to protect those tenants if they can’t catch up for three, six, eight, nine months, whatever it may be. To expect them then to pay back all that rent when they don’t have an income or haven’t had an income is going to be a very hard burden, particularly on my constituents, but on anybody who finds themselves in that type of situation. So a rent freeze and some type of federal balance to help with the payment of rents.

And so on April 1, you tweeted that you’ve lost five friends to the virus, and I’m very sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

And I hate to ask, but has that number grown since? 

Yeah, yep. I’d say it’s about — of personal friends — eight or nine now. [Editor’s note: It’s eight people. Their names are Lorena Borjas, Priscilla Carrow, Father Antonio Checo, Tarlach MacNiallais, Anne Quashen, Joe Hennessy, Gloria Lippman, and Joe Forman.]

Which is just incredible. And then, of course, I’m the councilman for the area and I’ve heard about, you know, at least two dozen, maybe almost 30 people in the community who have died.

JIM BURKE
LGBT activist Anne Quashen, right, seen here celebrating shortly before the 2019 Queens Pride Parade kick-off in Jackson Heights, Queens, recently died of the coronavirus.

I just found out this morning that a woman who lives in my building complex, not in my exact building, but within the complex, her name is Gloria Lippman, she died last night. She was only 75 years old. But, you know, I used to see her in the neighborhood all the time. She’d go [puts on thick New York accent] “Dannyyy! How are youuu?”

So you know, I hear of maybe one [death] a day. And it’s just too much death. It’s just too much death for anyone to bear.

Well, that was my next question. How are you bearing it? Like, what kind of toll is it taking on you?

I try to keep moving forward. One of the people who was in the original batch of five when I tweeted that out, his name was Tarlach MacNiallais, and he was a member of the St. Pat’s For All Parade, you know, the inclusive St. Patrick’s Parade that we have here in Sunnyside, Queens. So I think that one kind of hit me the hardest because he was the one who was I was closest to.

But I also just lost one of the founding members of PFLAG Queens. Her name is Anne Quashen. She was older, she was 88. And she died on Friday afternoon.

So it’s hard to say, you know, I just keep going forward because that’s all you can do, you know. And what makes it worse is that there’s no grieving period that, you know, you can get together with people and hug and console each other.

For Tarlach, we did an online or a virtual funeral, and a virtual Irish funeral, which went on for six hours. … There were people from Ireland on it, so … at least you can see people that might not otherwise be able to fly here, but you realize how important those things are, you know, to the grieving process. And so without it, all you can do is just keep going and, you know, try to get up each day and do what you can to get to the end of this.

Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel now? Are we at that point? 

Well, I’m always optimistic. You know, I like to say I survived one crisis, the AIDS crisis or the AIDS epidemic, right, and we survived other things as well. 9/11 and other catastrophes. … I’m of the age of Vietnam. I didn’t go to Vietnam, you know, but that was a disaster. I remember the oil crisis where you couldn’t get oil [for] your cars.

Eventually, we came out of all of that, and it’s part of our lived experience. So, yeah, I’m hopeful. You know, I think we’ll get through this and maybe even be more united as a community, and maybe people will stop sometimes being so ugly, but that’s what I’m hoping.

Yeah, and then the last question, when this is all over and we’re back to life as normal, when you kind of imagine that situation, what’s the first thing you do to enjoy yourself as a New Yorker?

I’m going to go to a Broadway show. [Laughs.] When I heard that the Broadway theaters weren’t gonna open ’til June 7, I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s a gay man’s nightmare.’

I always love my art and my theater and stuff like that. It kind of makes life worth living. So I’m really looking forward to that.

Read more here.

El Diario: Exigen a Albany no retroceder en avances de reforma a la justicia

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Mientras opositores de medidas como la eliminación de fianzas para delitos no violentos intentan empujar cambios en la Legislatura estatal, defensores advierten que hacerlo sería volver a criminalizar a los más pobres, negros y latinos

Exigen a Albany no retroceder en avances de reforma a la justicia.

Por Edwin Martinez

18 de Febrero 2020

El año pasado los promotores de la reforma a la justicia penal celebraron con bombos y platillos la aprobación de varias medidas que pretenden, entre otras cosas, que la aplicación de la justicia no dependa ni del nivel de ingresos o de pobreza, ni del perfil racial de los presuntos infractores.

Y aunque han pasado menos de dos meses desde que entró en vigor la nueva Ley de Fianzas, que permite que acusados de delitos no violentos esperen fuera de la cárcel a que llegue el momento de comparecer a juicio, nuevamente hay sobre la mesa un tira y afloje. La presión de diferentes sectores que insisten en que los cambios han aumentado la criminalidad en Nueva York y que pudiera ponerse en riesgo la seguridad, y una iniciativa en el Senado que pareciera representar ese tenor, hace temer que en la actual sesión legislativa en Albany se ponga en juego las normas recientemente aprobadas, lo que ha disparado las alarmas.

Defensores de los cambios en las provisiones del sistema penal, como el concejal de Queens, Daniel Dromm,quien lleva décadas luchando de la mano de activistas y organizaciones para que el sistema judicial sea “verdaderamente justo”, exigieron este martes que la Legislatura estatal no dé pasos hacia atrás en las leyes aprobadas y deje las cosas como están en materia de fianzas.

Ese fue el llamado que hicieron este martes líderes políticos y comunitarios en medio de una manifestación que tuvo lugar en Diversity Plaza, en Jackson Heights, donde aseguraron que si Albany no se compromete a proteger la reforma al sistema de fianzas que está aplicándose desde enero pasado, se regresará a “la política racista que encarcela a miles de neoyorquinos negros e hispanos inocentes”.

“A las personas como Harvey Weinstein, que está en libertad bajo fianza, se les permite deambular, a pesar de tener muchas acusaciones serias, mientras que las personas que tienen unafianza de $250 por una infracción menor, no tenían permitido salir, hasta que esta ley entró en vigencia. Estas son las injusticias de las que hablamos cuando hablamos de luchar por la reforma de las fianzas”, aseguró el concejal Dromm, quien advirtió que detrás del empuje para que Albany retroceda en sus leyes hay fuerzas de derecha que “quieren mentir”, asegurando que la ley de fianzas aumenta el crimen.

“Creo que la PBA ha caracterizado mal a esta ley y ha creado una atmosfera de miedo en la comunidad, algo que tenemos que combatir. En honor a la verdad sabemos que el 85% de la gente que están atrapadas en Rikers Island han cometido delitos menores. Estamos hablando de un asunto de justicia. Es importante que mantengamos la ley de reforma de fianzas como está ahora y que no haya cambios”.

Exigen a Albany no retroceder en avances de reforma a la justicia.

Dromm agregó que la detención preventiva innecesariamente pone a demasiadas personas en riesgo, en especial a poblaciones marginadas como negros, latinos, inmigrantes y comunidades LGBTQ.

Comunidades criminalizadas

Jessica González-Rojas, candidata demócrata a la Asamblea Estatal por el Distrito 34, se sumó al clamor y dijo que no se puede permitir que los avances retrocedan.

“La reforma de la fianza es una reforma vitalmente necesaria que afecta a muchas comunidades de color y personas de bajos ingresos, porque las poblaciones marginadas no pueden pagar la fianza son criminalizadas desproporcionadamente debido a la pobreza”, dijo la política. “Nos mantenemos unidos contra el miedo y con nuestros líderes estatales para mantener las importantes reformas de la justicia penal que se han logrado y necesitamos avanzar más”.

La senadora Julia Salazar manifestó que aunque considera que la cámara alta no retrocederá en lo que ya firmó, es necesario estar muy atentos y luchar unidos para garantizar que no haya cambios.

“Tengo preocupaciones sobre eso, pero hasta ahora no me parece que una nueva propuesta vaya a pasar. Siento que la reforma aprobada el año pasado era importante y tendrá un impacto positivo, y por eso no apoyo ninguna propuesta que eche para atrás lo que ya logramos”, dijo la senadora por Brooklyn.

Diferentes sectores de la policía se oponen a acabar con las fianzas.

Jon McFarlane, activista de justicia penal de la organización VOCAL-NY, defendió la ley vigente como un alivio a décadas de injusta criminalización a comunidades pobres.

“La reforma de la fianza permite a hombres y mujeres quedarse con sus hijos. Les permite mantener su empleo y continuar en sus comunidades, pues durante demasiado tiempo, personas pobres de sectores como Corona, Jackson Heights y East Elmhurst han sido víctimas. Esto es una cuestión de derechos humanos y debemos defender la reforma de la fianza”.

Una propuesta preocupante

Sobre la propuesta de tumbar lo logrado, organizaciones como The Legal Aid Society y The Bronx Defenders,entre otras aseguraron que es sumamente preocupante.

“La propuesta de la mayoría del Senado estatal pone la política por encima de las personas al no solo revertir las reformas fundamentales y necesarias que respaldaron y defendieron hace solo unos meses, sino que crearon un sistema mucho más regresivo para la detención preventiva dijeron. “Si se aprueba, esta propuesta (retroceder en las fianzas) aumentaría dramáticamente el número de personas que languidecen en la cárcel que se presumen inocentes. Crearía un sistema en el que incluso personas inocentes serían encarceladas sin posibilidad de liberación.

Exigen a Albany no retroceder en avances de reforma a la justicia.

Al ser consultada sobre las preocupaciones que tiene tanto quienes se oponen a la nueva ley de fianzas como quienes se oponen a que sean cambiadas, la líder de la mayoría demócrata del Senado, Andrea Stewart-Cousins dijo: “Nos estamos deshaciendo de la fianza en efectivo por completo. En pocas palabras, las reformas garantizarán que nadie sea encarcelado simplemente por su incapacidad de pago y que nadie salga de la cárcel debido a su enorme riqueza. Les daríamos a los jueces cierta discreción, pero con pautas y barandillas extremadamente estrictas y casi todos los delitos menores y no violentos no serían elegibles para la prisión preventiva”.

Mas aqui.

The Guardian: New York votes to close notorious Rikers Island jail complex

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Rikers is scheduled to shutter by 2026 after a decades-long run as one of the world’s largest jails

The Rikers complex counts 10 jails on an island between Queens and the Bronx that mainly houses inmates awaiting trial. Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP

By the Guardian staff and agencies

Originally published in the Guardian on October 17, 2019

New York City lawmakers voted to close the notorious Rikers Island jail complex, which has become synonymous with violence and neglect.

Rikers is scheduled to shutter by 2026, ending a decades-long run as one of the world’s largest jails. It will be replaced with four smaller and more modern jails located closer to the city’s main courthouses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.

“Rikers Island is a symbol of brutality and inhumanity and it is time for us to once and for all close Rikers Island,” said the city council speaker, Corey Johnson, a Democrat who shepherded the plan through the council. “As a city we must do everything we can to move away from the failed policies of mass incarceration.”

The New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, and other Democrats support the plan, which has a price tag of more than $8bn.

“This is one of those moments where a cycle gets broken. There’s been a cycle of incarceration,” De Blasio said at a news conference after the vote. “That cycle ends now” he added.

The Rikers complex counts 10 jails on an island between Queens and the Bronx that mainly houses inmates awaiting trial. The complex has housed jail inmates since the 1930s and has long been known for brutality. It saw hundreds of stabbings each year during the 1980s and early 1990s. It has been nicknamed Gladiator School, Torture Island, the Guantánamo of New York and, in summertime, the Oven.

More recently, a 2014 Associated Press investigation detailed dozens of inmate deaths including that of a homeless ex-marine who essentially baked to death in a hot cell.

Daniel Dromm, a councilman, invoked the names of former inmates who have died at the facility. The most notorious case in the jail’s recent history involved the 16-year-old Kalief Browder, who spent three years at Rikers Island after being accused of stealing a small backpack. The charge was eventually dismissed. Browder was beaten by officers and inmates, as shownin disturbing footage from surveillance cameras, obtained by the New Yorker. He took his own life at age 22.

Dromm also recalled Layleen Polanco, a transgender woman who was found dead in her cell last June.

With falling crime rates, the number of people incarcerated in the city on a daily basis has declined from a high of nearly 22,000 in 1991 to about 7,000 today. City officials announced this week that they believe they can shrink the jail population even further by 2026, to just 3,300 prisoners.

Gothamist: Bill To Bring Libraries To NYC Jails Faces Opposition From The Correction Department

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The Otis Bantum Correction Center on Rikers Island (Gothamist)

By Victoria Law

Originally published by Gothamist on February 27, 2019

When Camilla first arrived at Rikers Island in September 2016, she was placed in Building 9 of the Rose M. Singer Center, the island’s only women’s unit, to detox. “Building 9 is separate from the rest of Rosie’s,” she explained to Gothamist. “There’s no access to anything in Building 9.”

Thus, although the New York Public Library had opened a permanent library at the Singer Center two months earlier, Camilla and the other Building 9 residents had no access to those books. Staff allowed the women there one newspaper—and it was often nearly shredded with news about arrests, charges and Rikers Island literally cut out.

Camilla, who did not want us to publish her last name because she doesn’t want to be identified by her stay on Rikers, recalled, “I tried to read the ingredients labels off commissary [items] because I was desperate for something to read,”

On Tuesday, the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony on Councilmember Daniel Dromm’s bill, Int. 1184, that requires the Department of Correction to provide access to the library for all incarcerated people within 48 hours of entering the jail system. The Department would be required to report on the number of books they receive, the source of those books and, if books are censored, the reason for the censorship.

Only two of the city’s 11 jail buildings have permanent libraries—and these were created only recently. In July 2016, the New York Public Library opened a library at the Singer Center. The majority of the 1,200 books were either donations or withdrawals and discards from the library system. Two years later, in April 2018, the New York Public Library converted a storage room into a permanent library—this time at the Manhattan Detention Complex.

There’s a third library, but it only exists for a few hours one day a week. Every Friday morning, librarians from the New York Public Library bring books into the gymnasium at the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island. Men in that particular jail are escorted to the makeshift library to peruse and check out books. Then, the remaining books are packed away into a closet until the following Friday.

For people in the city’s other eight jail buildings, that leaves the book cart. Librarians of the city’s public library systems bring a book cart around to the housing units where people can check them out. There’s no uniformity as to how often a book cart is allowed onto a housing unit—for some units, it’s once a week; for others, books might only come every other week or as often as twice a week.

For people in punitive segregation (there are 129 of them, as of November 30, 2018) who can spend anywhere from 17 to 23 hours in their cell, access seems to be even more spotty. DOC officials testified that people in punitive segregation do not have access to either a physical library or the library’s book carts, a declaration that shocked and appalled Dromm and his colleagues. But librarians from the New York, Queens and Brooklyn public libraries later testified that they do indeed provide access to books and magazines for people in segregationas well as in the city’s Enhanced Supervision Housing. In some units, they are able to meet the readers face to face; at others, the would-be reader receives a list of available genres. They choose one, submit the slip and in return receive a book.

Michael Tausek, the DOC’s deputy commissioner for programming and community relationships, told the Committee that the Department does not support the bill.

“While the Department supports the spirit of Int. 1184 and is committed to working with library partners and the Council to improve existing library services, we do not believe that this bill would have the desired outcome of actually increasing the level of access to reading materials,” he testified. The DOC does not collect data on how often a person’s request to visit the library is granted or denied.

The librarians who actually work in the city’s jails disagree. In 2018, 31,000 people incarcerated in New York City’s jails checked out 68,000 books and magazines from the jails’ existing library services, said Nick Higgins, the chief librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library. But, he told the committee, if each jail had a dedicated library, “we can do so much more.”

In co-authored testimony, Queens, Brooklyn and New York Public Library correctional librarians noted that having dedicated libraries would establish access to educational opportunities and resources for people entering the jails and, upon release, create a stronger bridge back to a community library, which has the potential to reduce recidivism.

First Lady Chirlane McCray speaks to incarcerated New Yorkers on Rikers Island in 2017 ( Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Beena Ahmad of Books Through Bars NYC, an all-volunteer group that sends books to people incarcerated nationwide, read from the group’s collectively-written testimony, including excerpts of requests they receive. (Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Books Through Bar NYC and was an active volunteer until 2010.)

One of those excerpts was from a father currently in jail in Brooklyn, who wrote: “I’m a father of an 11-year-old daughter (who needs me in her life). I heard that it’s possible that I can maybe request and receive some books from you free of charge.”

Among the topics he requested were becoming a better father, spiritual living, and biographies of people “who had a rough life while young and overcame his obstacles.”

Ahmad told the Council that “this bill is a step in the right direction in that it recognizes the importance of providing access to free books.” However, she voiced the group’s concern that the bill does not create any funding to buy books for the libraries. “We hope that the City Council bill will do more than create empty shelf space.”

Dromm told Gothamist that this is the bill’s first hearing, and that cost estimates would be determined later on. The councilmember added that the city’s plan to shut down the jails on Rikers Island shouldn’t factor in to the decision to create libraries there, noting that he introduced the bill after hearing numerous complaints from formerly incarcerated people that library services and book access is minimal.

“There is space right now that DOC could use to set up a physical library,” Dromm said. “If they don’t do that, they should have a [book] cart delivery more frequently. Once a week or once every two weeks doesn’t seem sufficient.”

It certainly didn’t to Camilla, who was only permitted to visit the library at Rosie’s once every two weeks. At each visit, she was allowed only two books. “I went through those books pretty quickly,” she recalled. Fortunately, she noted, her family mailed her books, a luxury that not every family can afford. But jail rules prohibit having materials that aren’t legal materials that measure more than 12x12x12 inches. When jail staff found her mini-library, Camilla was forced to mail her books home. “I could be fighting. I could be selling drugs. But no, I’m getting books. And they were mad at me.”

Read more here.

WNYC: Legislation Would Make Phone Calls from Jail Free

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Dwayne Lee says his family struggled to pay for his phone calls from Rikers Island.
( Jared Chausow )

By Cindy Rodriguez

Originally posted by WNYC on April 23, 2018

Advocates are urging the City Council to pass a bill that would let inmates make phone calls from city jails for free.

Currently, jails charge a 50 cent initiation fee and 5 cents for each minute after that. While those appear to be modest amounts, they can be burdensome for low income families, advocates say.

Former inmate Dwayne Lee said his family spent close to $3,000 during the year when he was jailed at Rikers Island so that he could stay in touch and fight his case. Lee said he had been the family breadwinner; without his income, his children’s mother would sometimes sell her food stamps to pay for the calls.

“Public assistance is not that much money to take care of the family,” said Lee, a member of the advocacy group VOCAL-NY, prior to a City Council committee hearing on the issue Monday.

The Department of Correction offered tepid support for the measure, saying City Hall was open to making calls as inexpensive for inmates as possible.

A private company currently runs the phone system on Rikers. The company, called Securus, records all calls and monitors a certain percentage of them. Advocates said Securus gives the city $5 million annually from its profits. The Department of Correction said inmates are notified the calls will be recorded.

“Why is it that you don’t need a subpoena to wiretap or record a phone call of somebody who has not yet been convicted?” asked City Councilman Daniel Dromm from Queens.

The correction department said it was able to record the phone calls for security purposes and if prosecutors want access to the calls, they need a subpoena.

“We have used the phone call recordings because…we have had an increase in the percentage of our population that is gang affiliated and [are] using the phone calls to coordinate activities,” the department’s chief of staff, Jeff Thamkittikasem, said.

But Jared Chausow from Brooklyn Defender Services said those subpoenas may be issued without a judge’s approval.

“It adds no due process and does not begin to address the serious questions raised by the phone surveillance of tens of thousands of people detained on unaffordable bail,” Chausow wrote in an email to WNYC.

Read more here.

NY Law Journal: Social Justice Champions Debate

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The Fortune Society’s Reentry Debate Team was joined by members of the New York State Legislature, The City Council, and the Mayor’s Office, for a parliamentary debate held on Dec. 19 at the Ford Foundation on ending pretrial detention and the cash bail system in New York state.

 

Photo courtesy of The Fortune Society.

By NYLJ Staff

Originally published by the New York Law Journal on December 21, 2017

The Fortune Society’s Reentry Debate Team was joined by members of the New York State Legislature, The City Council, and the Mayor’s Office, for a parliamentary debate held on Dec. 19 at the Ford Foundation on ending pretrial detention and the cash bail system in New York state. Pictured left to right from the winning team, which argued in favor of eliminating cash bail, were City Council member Daniel Dromm (District 25) and Fortune debater Felix Guzman, joined by Khalil Cumberbatch, Associate Vice President of Policy, David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy at The Fortune Society. The Fortune Society is a nonprofit social service and advocacy organization supporting successful reentry from prison and promoting alternatives to incarceration. The group and The Rikers Debate Project have been collaborating since August to host weekly workshops that help Fortune clients learn the art of debate while discussing issues critical to criminal justice system reform.

Read more here.

The Norman Seabrook kickback allegations

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By Mark Chiusano

Originally published by amNY on June 9, 2016

After being arrested on federal corruption charges, Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, exits United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on June 8, 2016. (Credit: Getty Images/ Drew Angerer)

After being arrested on federal corruption charges, Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, exits United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on June 8, 2016. (Credit: Getty Images/ Drew Angerer)

On a visit to the troubled Rikers Island jail facilities a few years ago, Councilmember Daniel Dromm was taken aback by an unannounced companion accompanying a group that included council members and the corrections commissioner.

The companion was Norman Seabrook, the powerful president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association who has held that post for 21 years.

Dromm says he was surprised to see a union official there, watching over them. He was more surprised by Seabrook’s response when Dromm asked about the treatment of prisoners in solitary confinement.

Seabrook “became enraged,” Dromm says, “screaming at me.” Dromm says that Seabrook questioned the councilmember’s right to be on Rikers Island. “A total bully,” Dromm calls Seabrook. “It speaks to the bravado of a man who thinks he’s above the law.”

On Wednesday morning, that perception was paired with serious allegations. FBI agents arrested Seabrook at his Morris Park home and charged with taking kickbacks — including $60,000 passed hand-to-hand in a Ferragamo bag — in a corruption case that could have dramatic effects in NYC politics and on Rikers Island itself

You scratch my back. . .
Seabrook is accused of investing $20 million of union money, largely his members’ pension funds, in Manhattan hedge fund Platinum Partners, for a price.

Allegedly, Seabrook got a cut of Platinum’s profits from the investment, funneled through a go-between, as well as an initial fee. Murray Huberfeld, a manager at Platinum, has also been charged.

It started on a trip to the Dominican Republic in 2013, paid for by the go-between, Jona Rechnitz, a Brooklyn businessman and donor to Mayor Bill de Blasio who plead guilty to fraud conspiracy charges and is now cooperating with the government, according to media accounts.

Rechnitz made the trip with Seabrook and an unidentified police officer, according to the criminal complaint. After a night of drinking, the complaint alleges, Seabrook groused that he “worked hard to invest COBA’s money” and wasn’t benefitting personally from it. It was time that “Norman Seabrook got paid,” Seabrook allegedly said.

Rechnitz also allegedly paid for Seabrook’s airfare to Israel, California and Las Vegas. But back in NYC, things heated up. In late 2014, after Seabrook had successfully deposited funds with Platinum — including more than 40 percent of the union’s assets — he demanded his kickback. So Rechnitz bought an $820 Ferragamo bag — Seabrook’s favorite brand, according to the complaint — and used it to stash the $60,000 cash. The size and shape of the bag has not been publicly identified but this bag, at the right price, should give you an idea.

The bag, along with 10 pairs of Ferragamo shoes, were found by FBI agents in Seabrook’s house Wednesday morning.

A tale as old as time
Corruption in NYC is nothing new, from the case of police officer Frank Serpico which led to the investigations of the Knapp Commission in the 70s, to former Assemb. Sheldon Silver’s guilty verdict earlier this year.

The Seabrook case is just one of the reported local, state and federal investigations swirling around New York City at the moment, encompassing the NYPD and the fundraising activities of the mayor’s office.

It shows the effect corruption can have on individual New Yorkers — in Seabrook’s case, through the influence he has wielded for decades, a power which has sometimes stood in the way of reforming Rikers and changing the attitudes and actions of corrections officers.

Retired Correction Commissioner Martin Horn says Seabrook was a “more effective and aggressive leader” than other municipal union heads and was adept at advocating for his members’ needs (of course, that advocacy allegedly didn’t extend to their pension funds).

Seabrook had strategic relationships with elected officials, Horn says. Indeed, Gov. George Pataki appointed Seabrook to the MTA board. He was one of the first union leaders to support the mayoral candidacy of Michael Bloomberg and of Bill de Blasio.

In negotiating with Seabrook, Horn says there was always a “quid pro quo.”

Horn describes an early effort to combine the agencies of probation and correction for efficiency, which required approval in Albany. It was going nowhere, and Horn says he was told state legislators wouldn’t act unless Seabrook was in agreement.

So Horn went to Seabrook to discuss, and he says Seabrook asked what he would get in return for his support.

“I had nothing to give him,” Horn says.

The agencies remain separate.

Read more here.