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Leading the Way on Ending Punitive Segregation


Ponte Rikers de Blasio

Commissioner Ponte, the author, & Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Today, the New York City Department of Correction formally ended the practice of punitive segregation for young adults ages 19 through 21 years old, resulting in the complete elimination of punitive segregation, which some call solitary confinement, for inmates ages 16 through 21 in our custody. This is an unprecedented milestone in New York State correctional history and, even more important, across the nation. To date, no other city or state has accomplished comparable punitive-segregation reforms for the 19-21 year-old age group.

As Commissioner of the NYC Department of Correction, I understand this has not been easy, and something that has required us to methodically implement, test, and refine options that ensure the safety of our staff and inmates. However, I am extremely proud of what our uniform and non-uniform staff have accomplished by reforming our punitive-segregation practices and policies.

When I became Commissioner in April 2014, there were almost 600 people in punitive segregation and a backlog of over 1,700 people. And violence in our jails was on the rise. On October 6, we had 124 inmates in all forms of punitive housing -- a reduction of nearly 80% over two years. We accomplished this by creating non-punitive, incentive-based alternatives to safely manage inmate behavior.

And we have done all this while still reducing violence in our jails.

We started our reforms even before the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara, issued a report in August 2014 that concluded that “DOC relies far too heavily on punitive segregation as a disciplinary measure” and before we negotiated the agreement in the federal lawsuit Nunez v. City of New York, which was approved by a judge in October 2015.

Through a raft of initiatives, we fundamentally transformed the use of punitive segregation for all age groups.

When we ended punitive segregation for adolescent inmates aged 16-17 in December 2014, and later, for 18-year-old inmates in June 2016, we created therapeutic alternatives to help them manage their behavior.

For the adolescents, these comprise Second Chance Housing and Transitional Restorative Units (TRU), which feature higher staffing levels – one officer to five inmates in Second Chance and one to two or even one to one in TRU. The officers in these units receive training on youth brain development, crisis prevention and management, and trauma-informed care practices for adolescents.

Inmates in these programs are afforded enhanced programming and counseling to better their life skills and job prospects and a behaviorally based incentive system enables them to earn privileges and commissary points.

For young adults aged 18-21, we have also created Second Chance and TRU units, but we have added two levels of management.

“Secure Housing” is designed to safely house young adults who are engaging in serious violence and assaultive behavior -- closely supervising them while providing individualized therapeutic programming for their behavioral needs.

For persistently violent young adult offenders, such as those who have seriously assaulted staff or stabbed or slashed other inmates, we have created special young adult units of Enhanced Supervision Housing, where inmates spend seven structured hours daily out of cell. Similar to adolescents, they are provided a behaviorally based incentive system that enables them to earn more privileges and eventually move back into the general population.

Using punitive segregation less means using it as a more targeted and meaningful tool.
Through rule-making with our partners at the Board of Correction, our oversight body, we have made punitive segregation more effective and fair.

Inmates no longer serve any time that was accrued during a previous incarceration. A tiered system ensures that only serious, violent infractions earn full punitive-segregation time.
With few exceptions, we have capped the maximum sentence to 30 days and have limited the number of days one can spend in segregation to 60 days in any single six-month period.

It’s a significant accomplishment to have done this while continuing to push a downward trend in violence throughout the Department through comprehensive reform.

In the first eight months of the year, from January to August, the most serious assaults on staff have dropped 40% compared to the same period last year. Overall assaults on staff dropped 17% in that period. Even one assault on our staff is one too many, so we have a lot of work to do, but the trend is moving in the right direction.

These reforms also increase inmate safety. Uses of force by officers on inmates that result in serious injury dropped by 40% in the first eight months of the year, largely because of our de-escalation training.

The bottom line is that, contrary to the assertions of some, you don’t need overwhelming numbers of inmates in punitive segregation to make jails safer. Heavy use of segregation does not prevent violence or deter it, particularly in the younger age groups. In fact, it may make matters worse. The latest research on brain development shows that punitive segregation is inappropriate for individuals aged 21 and under.

In New York, we are proud to have made history by ending punitive segregation for our youngest offenders and curtailing its overuse for all others – all while providing safer alternatives that support both staff and inmates.

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Joseph Ponte is New York City Correction Commissioner. On Twitter @CorrectionNYC.

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Protecting Our Open Public Space Must Be A Top Priority


elizabeth street garden protest

From Thursday’s protest (photo: @ElizabethStGrdn)


In response to City Council Member Margaret Chin’s op-ed column in Gotham Gazette published Oct. 6, from New York City Community Garden Coalition Executive Director Aziz Dehkan:

The threat to Elizabeth Street Garden violates Mayor de Blasio’s mandate to promote livability for New Yorkers. Supporters of the garden rallied early on Thursday at the pre-submission conference for the Request for Proposals to demand the preservation of this treasured resource, the last open green space in Soho.

The RFP requires 30 years of affordable housing, perhaps a single generation, in a city where the senior population is outpacing all other demographic groups. In three decades, the senior apartments could exit affordability, but a new building would remain atop a community garden sacrificed for fleeting gain.

Council Member Margaret Chin, alone among the local representatives, opposes the community garden under a misguided sense of what “livability” entails. Liveable communities require affordable housing, services, and access to open spaces, most urgently in densifying communities. Her “tough decision” to advocate for housing in place of the Elizabeth Street Garden capitulates to pervasive development pressure.

Public review of the site gave voice to steady opposition of residents, business owners, the community board, and elected officials. The process yielded a resounding “no” to destroying the garden and urged the administration to consider an alternative site within the community district, one that would allow many more units while preserving the community garden.

Council Member Chin acknowledges the impact of the construction boom on the quality of life, but in identifying sites for affordable housing, constant construction has deafened her to constituent calls. Additional park space is needed district-wide, yet she supported the destruction of LaGuardia Corner Gardens, a casualty of NYU’s massive expansion plan in the South Village. She again fails to show consideration for Elizabeth Street Garden.

The coalition of advocates for Elizabeth Street Garden demand the land be dedicated as parkland. Today Elizabeth Street Garden enlivens Soho with year-round programs and sculpture. The City, in a weak effort to assuage the community, asks developers to reserve barely a quarter of the existing garden site for future open space. Operation of the diminished space will be a challenge to integrate into the community and serve the actual needs of visitors.

Privately owned public spaces throughout Manhattan have attracted criticism for using unwelcoming designs and restricting, or effectively eliminating, public use. Our City made this same deal for open space within developments without ensuring accountability decades ago. We should know better than to accept a plan that will wrest land from its public stewards.

The New York City Community Garden Coalition seeks the development of policies for creating community gardens and against their removal. Politicians too commonly position open space against housing, driving a wedge that need not exist. The two are essential aspects of healthy neighborhoods that side-by-side serve long-term needs of a community. Promoting a falsehood that affordable housing and open space are incompatible is disingenuous to the complicated negotiation around the City’s distribution of public land. The Mayor can do better to promote livability by preserving Elizabeth Street Garden in a park-starved neighborhood and redirecting efforts to the larger alternative site.

***
Aziz Dehkan is Executive Director of the New York City Community Garden Coalition.

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Paying New York’s Debt to Our Children and Their Schools


CFE march

Marching to Albany (photo: Alliance for Quality Education)


As a mother of two children, I worry every day about how they’re progressing in school. Are they doing their work? Are their teachers providing them with the special attention they need? Is their school giving them all the opportunities to succeed that they deserve?

This is what it means to be a mother. We love our children dearly, and we worry.

And, in New York, we have particular reason to be worried. For families living in high-needs school districts, the simple fact is this: our schools don’t have the resources that they deserve, and this is because New York State has failed to give them the money they need.

Ten years ago, in the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case, a judge found that New York State had been violating the constitutional rights of low-income children and children of color by short-changing their schools, where working-class and low-income families are concentrated, out of billions of dollars. The judge was appalled by tremendous inequalities in our schools and mandated that our state government contribute several billions of additional dollars to public schools around the state—with a particular eye to high-needs schools like where my children study.

As a parent and a taxpayer, I thought that the state would comply.

But it hasn’t. According to the Alliance for Quality Education, 10 years after the CFE ruling came down, New York State still owes our schools $3.9 billion. Let me repeat: a full decade after a court demanded that our government provide the resources needed for our schools to offer the places of learning that our children need, the money has not yet materialized.

Now, at schools like my children’s, programs have been cut, and students lack the computers and other technology that are fundamental to modern education and career training. The same does not happen in wealthier communities across the state—some of which have among the best public schools in the country.

It’s just not right, and working-class families of color like mine will not accept being second-class citizens who have to send our children to second-class schools.

That’s why, this week, parents from around the state are marching from New York City all the way to Albany to commemorate the CFE ruling’s anniversary and demand that the Legislature and Governor Cuomo make our schools, and our children, whole.

As we head into the next legislative session, it’s well past time to make sure that our children have the well-resourced schools that they deserve. The Governor, the Senate, and the Assembly must prioritize paying the debt owed to our schools in the upcoming state budget. If they don’t, they will continue to put the future of my children—and millions of other children around the state—in jeopardy.

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Faceli Álvarez is a member of Make the Road New York, the largest grassroots community organization in New York offering services and organizing the immigrant community. On Twitter: @maketheroadny.

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