Gotham Gazette

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Opinion

We Must End Solitary Confinement in New York


solitary confinement jail cell


We need to end solitary confinement in our city and state. Spending all day in a cell the size of an elevator can cause permanent brain damage. Common sense tells us this. Science confirms it. But only the words of someone who has been in solitary confinement can begin to explain it.

“No one to talk to. Nothing to do. I did push-ups. I read the Bible. That’s it. For days.” That is the way my brother-in-law explained it to me. And the haunting look in his eyes –– years later –– conveyed more than words ever could.

This is an issue of fundamental human rights. The United Nations General Assembly, through the adoption of the Nelson Mandela Rules, has denounced the use of solitary confinement for any period exceeding 15 days. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture raised banning solitary confinement altogether for persons detained pretrial. However, prisons and jails in New York State hold people in solitary confinement for years, and our city jails routinely use solitary confinement in pretrial detention.

This is also a racial justice issue. Black people represent about 18% of the state population, 43% of those incarcerated in the state, and 57% of those held in solitary confinement. In New York City, of the jailed patients receiving mental health services, Black and Latino patients were 2.52 and 1.65 times more likely to be put in solitary confinement than white patients.

The harm is undeniable. Hypersensitivity to stimuli. Hallucinations. Increased anxiety. Diminished impulse control. Severe and chronic depression. Nightmares. Self-mutilation. Difficulties with concentration and memory. These effects last well beyond solitary confinement and incarceration. Those who have spent time in solitary confinement are more likely to die upon release from custody, either by homicide or suicide, and are more likely to be reincarcerated.

The specter of solitary confinement looms large in jails and prisons. Contrary to popular perception, solitary confinement is not reserved for persons convicted of the most violent offenses or those who put staff and others in custody in danger.

Take, for example, my brother-in-law. He was in a schoolyard fight as a college student. One of his friends had a gun. Everyone in the fight was prosecuted. My brother-in-law was incarcerated for a gun he never touched and did not know about. He then was put in solitary confinement when he stood up for himself after someone twice his age took his dinner and dared him to say something.

Also contrary to public opinion, solitary confinement does not make prisons or jails safer. Research supports common sense here too, finding that the psychological damage caused by solitary can cause those placed there to act more violently. Other jurisdictions have shown that reducing solitary confinement can reduce jail violence. Cook County in Illinois banned solitary confinement in 2016 and found that assaults on people in custody and staff plummeted to an all-time low.

Lawsuits can help. I was the Chief Deputy at the New York Attorney General’s Office, and we sued a private contractor that provided medical services for a county jail. On the contractor’s watch, five people died due to inadequate medical care. Two others died, in solitary confinement, in another jail overseen in the state by this contractor. Our lawsuit got the contractor barred from providing jail health services in New York for three years.

But, the best and clearest solution is for the State Legislature and the City Council to act. Right now, the state prison system uses solitary confinement with impunity, handing out lengthy and virtually unlimited sentences for even minor infractions. The HALT Solitary Confinement Act would go a long way towards reducing its overuse, prohibiting anyone from being held in solitary confinement for more than 15 days and limiting its application to the most egregious conduct.

New York City has limited solitary confinement to serious infractions and capped its use at 30 days. But, the city’s Department of Correction has dodged these requirements by putting some people in a so-called “restraint desk,” where persons in custody have both legs and one arm strapped to a desk during their “out of cell time.”

Both the city and state must go further. We must ban the use of solitary confinement altogether -- as well as these “restraint desks” or any other method that results in banning solitary in name only.

I think often of my brother-in-law, in solitary confinement, doing push-ups and reading the Bible. The horrors of solitary confinement violate standards of human dignity. One need not be of a particular faith or religion to see this. But, this week after Christmas, let those of us of the Christian faith not view the Bible only as a text that may give comfort to those in solitary confinement and otherwise marginalized by society. Let us also recall Jesus’ clear direction to the rest of us to care for and speak up for those in prison.

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Alvin Bragg is Co-Director of the Racial Justice Project at New York Law School, former Chief Deputy Attorney General of New York State, and a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney. On Twitter @AlvinBraggNYC.

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Photo: 70023venus2009

More Covid Special Elections are Coming; Let’s Make Them as Safe as Possible


nyvote westvillage election

Voting during a pandemic (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Governor Cuomo just shut down indoor dining in New York City for the second time this year. Hospitalization rates and COVID-19 positivity rates across the five boroughs continue to soar, and the Mayor is warning that a full shutdown is imminent.

Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced that "we could start to see things start to get really bad in the middle of January, not only for New York state but for any state or city." Amid this dire backdrop, the City’s Board of Elections is holding a special election in Council District 12 in the northeast Bronx, where voting has already begun, and is also preparing for four other City Council special elections, to take place in the coming months. Two Queens elections are already scheduled for February, and two Bronx elections, including my race in District 11 in the northwest Bronx, will likely be scheduled for March.

In light of what the City faces, we need to make sure to prioritize public health and our fight against this virus, while guaranteeing that all New Yorkers have full representation on the City Council as soon as is safely possible. Here are some proposals to make sure the four upcoming City Council races do not set us back in our fight against the coronavirus.

Suspend Requirement Candidates Collect Voter Signatures to Appear on Ballot
In normal circumstances, candidates running in a special election for City Council are required to file petitions with 450 signatures of registered voters in their district in order to appear on the ballot. In reality, election lawyers encourage candidates to collect three times that number -- 1350 -- in case the petitions are challenged in court. 

While petitioning for the Queens races has already taken place, petitioning can and should be suspended for the upcoming Bronx races. To require what could be more than a dozen candidates in these two races to travel their communities to come in close contact with thousands of people at this time is highly irresponsible and could result in more people contracting this virus. As an alternative, candidates who have qualified for the Campaign Finance Board’s matching program, which requires City Council candidates to receive a minimum of 75 in-district donations of $10 or more, should be allowed to appear on the ballot. 

Send Postage-Paid Absentee Ballots to All Eligible Voters
For any election, voters should have as many options to cast their votes as possible. For these upcoming elections, this must include every effort to encourage people to vote by mail. If every eligible voter has an absentee ballot sent directly to their home, more will vote by mail. Period.

Postpone In-Person Voting Until More People Have Been Vaccinated
The City Charter requires the Mayor to call special elections within 80 days of a City Council Member leaving office. But while the Mayor is obligated to schedule these elections, the Governor can postpone them, as he has done with other elections this year to help to slow the virus’ spread.

The expansion of mail-in balloting in New York has reduced the number of people physically at the polls, but many will still vote in person, either out of preference, or because they do not receive a ballot by mail, or because they require assistance. 

With vaccines now being deployed, a postponement of in-person voting for these four elections to April or May could make a tremendous difference -- for poll workers, for voters, and for their families. With the state prioritizing vaccine distribution to New Yorkers above the age of 65 and to those with underlying health conditions, even a modest delay could mean thousands of our most vulnerable neighbors would be more protected before exercising their right to vote.

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Abigail Martin is a social worker and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work, and a candidate for City Council in District 11 in the Bronx. On Twitter @Abigail4theBX.

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For Schools, Communities and Families to Recover from Covid, We Need More Women in Leadership


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The men making schools decisions (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


School reopening has been a particular challenge for women in New York City. From lack of communication between the Department of Education, staff, and caregivers, constantly changing schedules, failure to invest in a care economy that values domestic labor and childcare, lack of tech support, and lack of funding to the daily demands of remote learning and the material conditions in schools, women have been hit hardest by the struggles our schools face. 

As we think about how our city and school system can begin to recover from this ongoing crisis, one thing is clear: We need to both elect more women and systematically encourage women to lead. 

As an early childhood elementary school teacher and an organizer and candidate, we’ve seen first hand how women in school communities have been disproportionately burdened with adapting to schooling during the pandemic. This disproportionate burden isn’t new, but COVID-19 has exacerbated gender inequities in schools, the home, and other workplaces. 

It's no coincidence that the people making decisions about schools in New York City are men, and mostly white men: Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, schools chancellor Carranza, principals union Cannizzaro, and teachers union president Mulgrew have largely determined every aspect of the city’s school reopening plan. 

Yet the vast majority of school-based workers — teachers, social workers, service providers, cafeteria staff, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, nurses — are women. These stakeholders have been consistently excluded from decision-making, even as they are being asked to nurture children with inadequate support amid a deadly pandemic and during a traumatic, unjust, emotional rollercoaster.

The Department of Education surveyed employees just once during the last nine months, and United Federation of Teachers (UFT) leadership has not solicited systematic input from members at all. Because the majority of school workers are women, many are teaching or providing services while also caring full-time for their own children and dependent loved ones at home. Many school-based staff have also taken on brand new roles this year with little support, requiring countless hours of unpaid overtime, in stark contrast to city workers in unions dominated by men like the NYPD, where there is no such thing as working without pay. 

Likewise, the burden of childcare and navigating hybrid and remote learning has largely fallen on women across the city, exacerbating already existing gaps. Mothers, aunts, and grandmothers are largely the ones supporting their children with remote learning while still balancing work and other responsibilities. This burden has fallen most on Black and/or immigrant families whose children are in remote cohorts at higher rates than white families, whose communities have been hit hardest by COVID-19, and who often have to overcome language barriers with little support from the Department of Education. Inexcusably, the mayor has had no plan to make remote learning better or more accessible to fully-remote families, despite widespread criticism. In the face of increasing agitation from parents and educators, the mayor and the chancellor only recently announced the framework of a new plan.

To make matters worse, many working women who are also caretakers tasked with supporting children through remote and hybrid learning have been relegated to an inequitable and indefinite hardship by the burdens of unemployment or workplace protections that don’t prioritize a care-based economy. 

Our city’s COVID-19 recovery urgently requires a legislative agenda that recognizes women’s paid and unpaid work — during this pandemic and beyond — as worthy. Our city must close the gender wage gap; adequately fund childcare and childcare providers; divest from policing and fully fund our public schools so that every school has at least one nurse, counselor, and social worker; compensate family-based and early childcare educators; proactively solicit input from educators, school-based staff, and parents about school reopening, remote learning, and in-person learning on a regular basis; give all educators ample additional planning and collaboration time whether they are remote or in-person; and invest in CUNY campus childcare. 

We imagine a city where decisions are made centered on care, in its fullest form, where parents and school staff are at the table and their voices are heard, where the labor of caregivers — whether teachers, parents, service-providers or health workers — is celebrated, funded, loved, and valued.

As we approach the 2021 elections in New York City, we have an opportunity to prioritize childcare, education, and gender equity to ensure our recovery from covid doesn’t leave women even further behind. To do so, we can start by making sure our leaders understand the disproportionate impact this pandemic has had on women. It’s high time we elect more compassionate, bold women who have been doing the work of caring for communities.

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Shahana Hanif is an organizer and candidate for City Council in District 39 in Brooklyn. Liat Olenick is a public school teacher, advocate, and activist leader. On Twitter @ShahanaFromBK & @Liat_RO.

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