NY prisons to overhaul solitary confinement

ALBANY — New York will overhaul its system for placing prisoners in solitary confinement as part of a wide-ranging settlement that promises to dramatically reduce the number of isolated inmates.

The agreement Wednesday between the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and three current and former inmates supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union will significantly reduce the number of violations that can lead to solitary confinement, as well as cut down on maximum isolation sentences while moving 1,100 currently isolated inmates into alternative programs.

Pending approval by a federal court, the agreement is expected to cost the state $62 million to fully implement over the next three years, with a two-year monitoring period to follow.

It will apply to all 54 prisons that are part of the state’s sprawling corrections system, which houses about 53,000 inmates. About 4,000 inmates currently are in Solitary Housing Units, according to the state.

That includes 124 units at the Five Points maximum prison in Seneca County; 54 units at the Elmira prison in Chemung County; and 30 units at Sing Sing in Westchester County, state records show.

“New York state has recognized that solitary confinement is not only inhumane but detrimental to public safety, and has committed to changing the culture of solitary within state prisons,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU.

The agreement garnered praise from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the leaders of the NYCLU, who hailed it as a model for other states. But it was met with opposition by the union representing the state’s corrections officers, which said it was “simply wrong” to take “tools” away from officers facing danger.

The deal is the result of nearly four years of negotiations spurred by a federal lawsuit claiming the state’s solitary-confinement program is unconstitutional — a claim the state does not admit to in the settlement.

One of the plaintiffs who brought the class-action lawsuit against the state was Tonja Fenton, a former inmate at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Westchester County.

Fenton, who served 270 days in solitary confinement for three violations, said the settlement is “important for me but even more important for those who are not out of prison.”

“There’s nothing in solitary. You don’t hear other voices,” Fenton said Wednesday. “You speak out loud to hear yourself. You forget what it’s like to be human.”

The terms of the settlement call for major changes to state guidelines that determine which prisoners can be sent to Solitary Housing Units — where inmates are generally kept in a cell in isolation for 23 hours a day — and the duration of their stay.

As it stands, there are 87 violations that can get an inmate sent to solitary confinement. Under the new rules, 23 of those violations would no longer result in isolation.

The settlement also will cut down on long-term solitary sentences, except in cases where an inmate is violent, commits an “unhygienic act” or tries to escape — such as Clinton Correctional Facility escapee David Sweat, who is currently in solitary confinement at Five Points after leading authorities on a three-week manhunt last June.

The state also agreed to stop serving what’s known as “The Loaf”: A mixture of foods packed into a meatloaf-like brick and served to prisoners who are being punished.

“This groundbreaking agreement with the NYCLU should serve as a model for other states across the nation to follow in reforming the use of solitary confinement,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The state also agreed to create new alternative-housing programs for about 1,100 inmates — about a quarter of those currently in solitary confinement in New York — at certain prisons across the state, including what will be known as a Step-Down Program at the maximum-security Southport Correctional Facility in Chemung County.

The Southport Step-Down Program will house up to 252 inmates when it is fully implemented three years after the settlement is finalized, and will serve as a place for inmates with long-term solitary sentences to transition back to the general prison population.

Southport currently has among the largest solitary confinement facilities in the state, with 789 units and 587 inmates, state records show.

While Cuomo and the NYCLU hailed the deal as a model, the deal did not garner support from the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, the union representing 20,000 corrections officers in New York.

The union pointed to statistics showing inmate assaults on prison staff have increased significantly in recent years. In 2012, there were 514 reported assaults on staff members; so far this year, there have been 820, according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

Michael Powers, president of the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, said the union was still reviewing the agreement.

But the union president made clear that corrections officers aren’t on board.

“While we have not had the opportunity to review the details of this settlement, our state’s disciplinary confinement policies have evolved over decades of experience, and it is simply wrong to unilaterally take the tools away from law enforcement officers who face dangerous situations on a daily basis,” Powers said in a statement.

The agreement is the latest to come from the long-term negotiations between Cuomo’s administration and the attorneys representing the NYCLU. A previous agreement had sketched out an end to sentencing pregnant women, juveniles and the developmentally disabled to isolation in all but the most extreme circumstances.

As part of the agreement, the various reforms will be implemented on a varying timetable, ranging from two months to three years depending on the changes.

JCAMPBELL1@Gannett.com

Campbell is a reporter with the Gannett Albany bureau.