After the City Council’s historic vote Wednesday to ban most uses of solitary confinement in city jails, Mayor Eric Adams — who opposed the measure over safety concerns for correction guards and other detainees — is now weighing a potential veto once the bill reaches his desk.
The legislation, Int. 549, is designed to mostly end a practice, where a detainee is held alone in a cell for most of the day, that is widely seen as inhumane — the United Nations has even called it a form of torture. The bill mandates that all detainees in city jails must have 14 hours of out-of-cell time a day and that only those who engage in violent incidents can be separated from the general population.
But Adams and other opponents of the measure insist it would do the opposite, making both those in custody and correction officers less safe by eliminating an essential tool for removing violent detainees from the general jail population.
“There are some serious extremely violent people that are in the Department of Correction that prey on inmates and prey on correction officers and other civilians that work in a correctional facility,” Adams said in an interview on 77 WABC following the vote. “This assault on public safety is just wrong.”
At the same time the city denies it still uses solitary confinement, claiming instead that it employs what it calls “punitive segregation.” But a report from Columbia University earlier this month found that punitive segregation is more or less the same thing.
Banning a method of ‘torture’
The City Council approved the bill during its stated meeting on Dec. 20 by 39 to 7 votes, with one abstention, out of the 51-member body. The vote count indicates that there is enough support in the chamber to override a mayoral veto, should Adams choose to give the legislation a thumbs down.
“This is about safety at Rikers [Island],” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the bill’s prime sponsor, before the vote. “What it does prevent is the isolation that is known as torture for hours at a time that causes a physical toll that is lifelong.”
While casting her vote, left-leaning Council Member Tiffany Cabán (D-Queens) said the legislation will make city jails far safer for detainees and city Department of Correction (DOC) officers alike.
“New York City will never torture our way to public safety, far from achieving public safety, solitary confinement only leads to more violence,” Cabán said. “Everyone involved from incarcerated New Yorkers, to Correctional Officers, to medical staff, to communities on the outside will get better public safety outcomes when we finally ban solitary.”
‘Gimme a break’
Council Republicans also took the chance to rail against the measure before voting against it. Far-right Council Member Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) said banning solitary would endanger female correction officers.
“You sit here and you claim women’s rights. How about the rights of our female correction officers that are brutally beaten and raped?” Paladino asked her colleagues. “How about them? What, they don’t matter because they wear a uniform? Gimme a break.”
However, it remains unclear how the mayor plans to proceed with both the solitary bill and another measure that passed by a veto-proof majority on Wednesday requiring the NYPD to report on lower-level civilian encounters, which he also opposes.
“It was just passed, and we’re looking at all of our options and the legal team is going to make the final determination,” Adams said during a Wednesday night interview on NY1. “So, you know, it just passed, and we want to make sure we review it, and we’re going to continue with some conversations.”
