Humane, but safe, jails
Spoiler alert: A new rule Mayor de Blasio announced this week that would fulfill his pledge from last summer to “end solitary confinement” in city jails, doesn’t actually end solitary confinement in city jails. What the changes do propose, pending approval after a public comment period and Board of Correction vote this spring, is further reducing use of solitary confinement as a punishment for inmates’ violent behavior. The modifications would build on de Blasio’s other reforms to solitary, including the cessation of punitive segregation for inmates under age 21 and for anyone with serious mental illness. Last summer, the city also barred its use on people with certain underlying medical conditions like asthma and heart disease. The average daily number of prisoners in solitary has already fallen 88%, from 868 in 2012 to just 108 last year.
The new system would have a three-tiered disciplinary scheme that guarantees inmates a minimum of 10 hours outside their cells, up from the current four hours, plus five hours of programming daily.
Inmates in the program would receive individualized support plans.
The change is supposed to “eliminate the harmful effects of punitive segregation while ensuring the safety of staff and people in custody.”
That’s quite a lofty promise. But both goals are worth striving for. A wealth of research shows the profound negative physical and psychological impact of prolonged isolation, and the sensory deprivation, lack of normal human contact and idleness it entails. But the city must also do what it can to ensure the safety of correction officers, who’ve suffered a 26% increase in inmate assaults during 2020.
Correction Department officials say that as criminal justice reforms reduced incarceration rates, people accused of violent crimes and those with mental health problems make up rising shares of the inmate population. That further cements the obvious fact our jails have become de facto psychiatric care facilities after decades of systematic federal and state defunding and dismantling of inpatient mental health institutions.