NYC Mayor Adams insists solitary confinement doesn’t exist in jails; watchdogs disagree

Mayor Adams doubled down Tuesday on his claim that solitary confinement does not exist in New York City jails after issuing a last-minute executive order to block elements of a law banning the practice passed by the City Council.

But jail oversight officials, legal observers and even the city jail system’s federal monitor questioned the claim, citing several lockups where isolation of detainees viewed as troublesome is still in use.

“We don’t have solitary confinement in New York City,” Adams declared to reporters, while his chief counsel Lisa Zornberg claimed the city Department of Correction hasn’t used solitary confinement “since 2019″ and said the Council law, which easily survived a mayoral veto, was “dangerous.”

People within and outside of city government who closely monitor how detainees are confined say the practice remains in place in at least three jails on Rikers Island under a range of names, such as “restrictive housing, de-escalation confinement, Enhanced Supervised Housing, and involuntary protective custody.”

“DOC policies may have changed, but in practice, DOC still holds people in solitary confinement for 23 or more hours in NIC (North Infirmary Command) and West Facility, and for 17 hours in RESH,” a unit for men in the Rose M. Singer Center, said Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society.

“These are the abuses that the law was intended to curb, and the city’s refusal to develop strategies to reduce isolation does not constitute an emergency.”

The second and third floors of NIC currently dubbed “restrictive housing” — and by former DOC Commissioner Louis Molina as “involuntary protective custody” — with 84 total units are still being used to isolate detainees seen as troublesome, a Board of Correction report said.

“There are two floors of NIC which meet the definition of solitary confinement,” said a city jail oversight official who asked not to be identified. “There is no congregate out of cell time, and the only time they are out of their cells is when they are in a small ‘day room’ which is actually part of their cell.”

Jennifer Parish, director of the Mental Health Project at the Urban Justice Center, said she visited men being held in the ESH unit at the Rose M. Singer Center on Wednesday.

“Some reported being out of their cells no more than four hours a day and some less than that,” she said. “When I asked how they were doing, one talked about his anxiety getting worse. Several talked about it being inhumane. The law requires people to be out of their cell 14 hours a day, so this clearly violates the law.”

The federal monitor tracking violence and use of force in the jails expressed concerns about the solitary law in January. But as recently as July 22, the monitor also made clear in another report it is not gone from the jails.

“The goal [to ban solitary confinement] is laudable and one we support,” the monitoring team wrote.” [We recommend] the department immediately ensure that solitary confinement is eliminated in department policy and practice.”

The monitor’s July 22 report confirmed that DOC is still placing detainees in cells in NIC with small caged alcoves which, while technically allowing detainees out of their cells, still prevent “adequate” interaction with other people and access to programs.

The monitoring team tracks violence and use of force in the jails as part of a 2015 consent decree between the Justice Department and the city.

On April 6, 2023, a fire set by a detainee spread throughout one of the isolation units in NIC trapping a half-dozen other detainees in walls of smoke. One detainee, Hector Rodriguez, described to The News sticking his head in his cell toilet bowl to in a desperate effort to find breathable air.

A BOC investigation found the sprinkler system had been inexplicably shut off as long as a year prior, staff did not patrol for two hours before the fire, and the detainees were marooned in their cells for nearly half an hour as the fire and smoke grew in intensity and DOC staff mounted a disorganized and problematic response.

The monitor also said DOC should bar the practice of confining detainees in lockable shower stalls.

“The Department must ensure that decontamination showers may not be locked or utilized for de-escalation or any other form of confinement,” the July 22 memo said.

In August, 2021, Brandon Rodriguez was locked in such a shower stall for an extended period while in a mental health crisis. He begged to be released, but was ignored, as The News has reported. Finally, he hung himself in the stall. His mom found out about his death in a Facebook post.