[Enews] Senate passes new SHU bill

[NAMI-NYS Enews]

Governor, Lawmakers Agree On Solitary-Confinement Bill
By CARA MATTHEWS   Gannett News Service   July 17, 2007
 
ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer and lawmakers announced yesterday that they have
agreed on a compromise bill to ban solitary confinement for seriously
mentally ill prison inmates because legislation passed this session faced a
certain veto by the executive.
 
The Senate passed the bill unanimously during a special session yesterday,
and the Assembly is scheduled to vote on the measure when it returns to
Albany later this year.
 
The legislation would require the state Department of Correctional Services
to set up residential treatment units for inmates with serious mental
illnesses.
 
Prisoners would be offered at least four hours a day, five days a week, of
therapeutic programming and/or treatment out of their cell.
 
The chairman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee,
Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette, Seneca County, said the bill is a
"landmark legislative measure, fully agreed upon with the Assembly and the
governor," that "encourages, establishes and requires the different
treatment of the mentally ill who are incarcerated."
 
Correction officers would receive special training on how to work with this
population, and the state Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for
Persons with Disabilities would monitor the program on behalf of inmates.
 
"This legislation will make our prisons safer, will make our prisons more
humane," Nozzolio said.
 
Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement, a coalition of groups
that favor the legislation, have opposed solitary confinement - also known
as the box - for seriously mentally ill prisoners because members believe it
exacerbates inmates' conditions. Cells in the box are 6 feet by 9 feet, and
occupants eat what's known as the loaf, made from bread and cabbage, as
punishment. The agreed-upon legislation ensures that would no longer happen
in most cases.
 
"We know that people who are very sick are not going to be stuck in the
toxic environment of special housing, where they're only going to get
worse," said Bob Corliss of the Mental Health Association of New York.
 
About 12 percent of the prison population in New York, or some 8,000
inmates, has serious psychiatric disabilities, according to the bill's
sponsors, Nozzolio and Assembly Correction Committee Chairman Jeffrion
Aubry, D-Queens.
 
The bill would not ban solitary confinement entirely for this population.
This is how it would work:
- Inmates with severe mental illness (such as schizophrenia or bipolar
disorder) would be diverted or removed from solitary confinement if the
isolation term could potentially be for more than 30 days. They would be
assessed by a mental-health clinician within one business day of being
placed in the solitary unit.
- Inmates with minor mental disorders, or who required limited intervention,
would be assessed by a professional within 14 days. If the prisoner were
found to have a serious mental illness, the prison system would have 14 days
to decide whether the inmate should be removed from solitary confinement.
- Prison officials could decide not to remove someone from the box if doing
so would place in jeopardy the safety and security of the inmate, another
person or the facility.
- Prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities who were not removed from
solitary confinement would receive a heightened level of treatment
consisting of at least two hours a day, five days a week, of out-of-cell
therapeutic care.
 
Senators gave final passage to the original bill at the end of their regular
session last month, but negotiations had not concluded with Spitzer's office
about how to hold down costs, provide special services only to the sickest
of the sick, and ensure inmates without severe mental illnesses could not
take advantage of the system.
 
The governor's administration had raised concerns about the price tag of
diverting mentally ill prisoners from solitary confinement to residential
treatment centers run by the prison system.
 
The Senate and Assembly passed the bill during the legislative session.
 
Spitzer had questioned whether a new law was necessary since an April
settlement agreement over a lawsuit filed on behalf of mentally ill inmates
required a number of changes and expenditures to improve the quality of care
for that population.
 
Provisions of Disability Advocates' settlement with the state include giving
inmates with severe mental illness who are in the box at least two hours a
day of out-of-cell treatment, setting up residential programs for about 400
prisoners with serious psychiatric disabilities, improving
suicide-prevention assessments, and other changes.
 
A spokeswoman for Spitzer did not immediately respond to requests for
comment yesterday.
 
According to advocates, state officials have estimated the legislation could
result in spending another $60 million and diverting hundreds more prisoners
than expected when the governor put about $60 million in the state budget in
anticipation of the court settlement.
 
The state will have to hire additional treatment staff, require training for
department staff, and retrofit existing correctional facilities or construct
new ones.
 
It would take several years for all the new units to be operational.
 
The Legislature passed similar legislation in 2006, but former Gov. George
Pataki vetoed it.
 
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070717/NEWS05/707
170351/1026/NEWS10 
 
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