When Melania Brown, 33, heard that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had publicly vowed in June 2020 to end solitary confinement, Brown hoped she might finally make good on a promise she, herself, had made to her deceased sister.

 

Brown’s younger sister, Layleen Polanco, 27, a transgender woman, died a preventable death following an epileptic seizure on June 7, 2019, while she was held in segregated confinement on Rikers Island. As reported last year, activists have long alleged that solitary confinement has killed and destroyed the lives of countless Black people and other People of Color, and is also disproportionately inflicted against Black Trans people.

 

NBC News reported that Polanco was arrested in April 2019 on misdemeanor assault charges, was held at Rikers on $500 bail, and that records indicated she had been placed in segregated confinement for assaulting a corrections officer.

 

The Bronx District Attorney’s Office found that staff had left Polanco alone for up to 47 minutes around the time of her death. However, people placed in segregated confinement were required to be checked every 15 minutes, especially those who were vulnerable. Time magazine reported that Polanco’s period in segregated confinement followed a stay in hospital where she had received psychiatric care.

 

In August 2020, the City news publication reported that Polanco’s family agreed to a landmark lawsuit settlement against New York City of $5.9 million.

 

De Blasio’s pledge last year to end solitary was no doubt spurred on by the high-profile case and it gave Brown hope, at the time. “I made my sister a promise to close down the place where she took her last breath. I thought my sister was going to get that justice,” she said. However, Brown is now doubtful this will ever happen.

 

The new punitive model set to replace solitary confinement in city jails is called the Risk Management and Accountability System (RMAS). It was voted on by the New York City Board of Correction (BOC) in June 2021 and is due to go into effect on Nov. 1, 2021.

 

However, activists like Brown, along with 74 New York City and State lawmakers, including State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (S.D. 34), and Assembly Members Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81) and Nathalia Fernández (A.D. 80) have criticized RMAS, saying it is just solitary by another name.

 

Indeed, restricted housing, segregated confinement, special housing units (SHU) and punitive confinement are just some of the terms used by some parties when discussing punitive measures for people held in custody, while others continue to use the blanket term, solitary confinement.

 

Adopted by the United Nations, the Nelson Mandela Rules define “segregated confinement for more than 15 days” as torture. Segregated or solitary confinement typically means people are locked in their cells for 20 to 24 hours a day, with no out-of-cell time and no physical interaction with other inmates.

 

To add to the confusion, jails generally refer to a place for those awaiting trial or held for minor crimes, whereas prison generally refers to a place for convicted criminals of serious crimes. Jails, like Rikers Island, tend to use the term, punitive confinement, and prisons tend to use the term, special housing units.

 

Brown said the mayor made a promise to end solitary but all he did was change the name. “It’s devastating,” she said. “It’s a slap in the face.” For his part, the mayor said New York City is going further than any jail system in America to ban solitary. “Through our work with our BOC, we have found a plan that will provide a safe and humane environment for those who are incarcerated and officers alike,” he said.

 

RMAS was crafted by BOC and the City’s Department of Correction (DOC) officials. They say it replaces solitary with a new, two-tier, disciplinary model that fundamentally changes the way DOC responds to violence committed by people in custody, while also ensuring accountability and safety in a more humane and effective manner.

 

According to City officials, RMAS includes the following features:

• attorney representation at the infraction hearing and throughout the process;
• minimum 10 hours out-of-cell time, socializing with at least one other person;
• a strong presumption of progression from Level 1 to Level 2 over the 15- day duration, and release from Level 2 in 15 days;
• precludes the extension of RMAS punitive measures, except when necessary, requiring documentation that demonstrates a clear threat to safety, and allows the inmate to appeal the extension with attorney representation;
• individualized behavioral support plans;
• steady, experienced case managers;
• hours of daily programming, including required therapeutic programming in space outside the facility’s dayroom space and
• daily rounding by health and mental health staff.

 

Other conditions and programming are stipulated for the period post-RMAS.

 

An extract from the 116-page NYC DOC document entitled, “Notice of Rule-making Concerning Restrictive Housing in Correctional Facilities,” dated March 5, 2021, reads as follows: “The Board of Correction is proposing a new rule and rule amendments designed to ensure that people in the Department of Correction’s custody: (1) are placed in restrictive housing in accordance with due process and procedural justice principles; and (2) are confined in the least restrictive setting and for the least amount of time necessary to address the specific reasons for their placement and to ensure their own safety as well as the safety of staff, other people in custody, and the public.”

Another extract stipulates that RMAS guarantees that people in custody who have committed serious offenses in jail still receive at least 10 hours outside of their cell per day with some opportunity for socialization. The proposed rules also prohibit the Department from routinely shackling people during their time out-of-cell. No definitive maximum amount of time in restrictive housing is stipulated under RMAS, however, making it difficult to compare it with other punitive models.

 

RMAS follows the signing, on April 1, 2021, by former NYS Gov. Andrew Cuomo of a new State law, the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act (HALT), set to take effect next year on April 1.

 

HALT was also designed to end solitary confinement in both New York State prisons and in New York City jails by minimizing the isolation of inmates, providing them with opportunities for human engagement and access to rehabilitative programming.

 

 

The law aimed to bring New York into compliance with international standards and save the State tens of millions of dollars over the next several years (presumably in lawsuit pay-outs).

 

HALT defines solitary confinement as a situation where an inmate is locked up alone for more than 17 hours a day for a specific duration, meaning no physical interaction with other inmates or any out-of-cell time. Punitive confinement is allowed under HALT but not beyond 15 consecutive days.

 

In addition, under HALT, vulnerable inmates are precluded from spending any time in solitary and the act also mandates that inmates who are placed in punitive confinement have at least four hours of out-of-cell, congregate programming every day.

 

Critics of RMAS say people in City jails would be locked up in their cells for 23 hours a day and, potentially, could be held in solitary, indefinitely.

 

In addition, they say inmates’ out-of-cell time would be confined to fenced-in cages which extend out from their cells, keeping inmates physically segregated and making it impossible to implement any congregate, rehabilitative programming.

 

“It seems outrageous to me that a city that claims to be as progressive as New York would continue to use solitary confinement,” said Jennifer J. Parish, the director of criminal justice advocacy at the Urban Justice Center. “We know that isolating people in this way not only causes harm to them at the moment but has long term consequences as well.”

 

A study in The Lancet, a British medical journal, found that even a few days of solitary confinement can significantly increase an inmate’s risk of death, once released. The study included roughly 14,000 formerly incarcerated people at a Danish prison. Researchers found that 5 percent of the inmates, most of whom had spent less than a week in solitary, died within five years of release. This compared to 3 percent of former inmates who died following release, who had spent no time in solitary.

 

Candie Hailey, 37, spent three years in solitary at Rikers for allegedly assaulting a staff member while in protective custody. She told Norwood News she tried to commit suicide 188 times while in solitary and that, occasionally, she struggles with the same urges, post-incarceration. “Sometimes I’ll be sitting down, watching television and I’ll think this is a dream and I’m going to wake up and be back in solitary,” she said.

 

Today, Hailey lives in South Carolina, and although she’s thousands of miles away from Rikers, there are certain smells and even foods that can send her back to her days in solitary. “I don’t like chicken,” she said. “Like, I like fried chicken, but I don’t like baked chicken. I hate when I go to a restaurant, and I see it because it reminds me of the bloody, undercooked chicken they used to cook at Rikers.”

Much power & strength to @melaniabrown11 & all of the families who have lost loved ones to the horror that is Rikers Island. #CloseRikers now! pic.twitter.com/yPEL3s1Y5k

— John M. Blasco #CloseRikers (@JBlascoNYC) September 15, 2021

Hailey, who was acquitted of her charges after going to trial, said, “Solitary is torture. It’s just torturous. It’s inhumane and it’s evil.”

 

Meanwhile, Chris Moreau, the Mid-Hudson regional vice president for the NYS Correction Officers Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPA), the union representing the State’s correction officers, contends that currently solitary confinement doesn’t exist in New York or anywhere else in the United States.

 

“It’s, you know, a buzz word that everybody clings to,” he said. According to Moreau, what advocates call solitary confinement is a necessary disciplinary tool that correction officers use to keep staff and inmates safe from those inmates who get violent.

 

Moreau said inmates who commit crimes are pulled out of the general population, are held in secure housing units, and cannot move about the facility unattended. “Even if they’re in the SHUs, inmates have access to recreation. They have access to programming. They have access to counselors and their attorneys,” Moreau said. “They’re seen by medical, and this is all time spent out of the cell. They’re given tablets, and some even have television and radios, depending on the facility.”

 

After the HALT Act was signed into law in April 2021, the New York State Council of Probation Administrators (NYSCOPA) filed a federal lawsuit against the State and NYS DOC to overturn the legislation. They say, if implemented, it would expose officers to a level of inmate violence that would put their lives at even greater risk.

 

NYSCOPA analyzed data provided by the NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) and found that from 2012 to 2020, inmate-on-staff attacks in NYS prisons increased by 100 percent, and inmate-on-inmate attacks increased by 85 percent, despite a 37 percent decrease in the total inmate population.

 

Jeff Dumas, 54, a retired sergeant who worked at DOCCS for 25 years, said, “These politicians lose sense of the fact that they are condemning what we do to keep ourselves safe from murderers, rapists, child molesters, gang bangers, thieves, and drug peddlers,” he said. “What about the normal person who’s just going to work to earn a wage, and go home to his family? They’ve done nothing wrong, but yet the politicians are going to step on the security procedures that keep officers safe.”

 

Norwood News attempted to contact two correction officers who were recently hospitalized following an inmate attack. However, to maintain their privacy, both declined to comment.

 

Currently, activists who seek an end to solitary are working with NYC Council Members Danny Dromm and Keith Powers. They aim to create and pass legislation at City Council level that would amend RMAS and bring it into compliance with HALT.

 

Norwood News reached out to Dromm’s office to ask if the proposed amended RMAS legislation is expected to pass before Nov. 1. We did not receive an immediate response.

 

Meanwhile, Jason Kersten, DOC’s press secretary, provided the following statement to Norwood News, on the alleged gaps between HALT and RMAS.

 

“Not only are we confident that RMAS complies with HALT when it comes to eliminating solitary, we believe it goes much further. It mandates more programming, eliminates the use of routine restraints, and allows people to communicate with the people next to them for a minimum of 10 hours a day. We don’t claim that it’s perfect, and we will keep refining it after the initial implementation in November.”

 

Today, I visited Rikers Island and what I saw was horrifying beyond words—garbage and bleach covered floors, incarcerated people kept in showers instead of cells with little food and water.

No one is safe on Rikers. @GovKathyHochul must sign the Less is More Act immediately. pic.twitter.com/4GLERU6UPF

— Alessandra Biaggi (@SenatorBiaggi) September 13, 2021

Meanwhile, on Monday, State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, Congressman Jamaal Bowman and other elected officials toured Rikers Island. “Today, I visited Rikers Island, and what I saw was horrifying beyond words – garbage and bleach covered floors, incarcerated people kept in showers instead of cells with little food and water,” the senator tweeted. “No one is safe on Rikers. @KathyHochul must sign the Less is More Act immediately.”

 

The Less is More Act bill, which has not yet become law, restricts incarcerating New Yorkers for technical and non-criminal parole violations and requires hearings to happen more quickly.

 

Norwood News has reached out to government officials for comment. As the City’s response was quite lengthy, we covered it as a new story.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story