Congressman Goldman Calls for End to Solitary Confinement in New York City Jails

Read the Letter Here

Washington, DC – Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) today joined Congressman Adriano Espaillat (NY-13) and all other Democratic members of the New York City congressional delegation in a letter to City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, echoing their support to ban solitary confinement in New York City.

The letter follows a report by the Correctional Association of New York from earlier this year, which cited the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s overall lack of adherence and failure to implement New York state’s current statute, the HALT Solitary Confinement Act, which places limits and restrictions on the practice of solitary confinement in state prisons, prompting the need for additional action at the federal and local levels.

"Solitary confinement has been repeatedly proven to deteriorate the physical and mental wellbeing of inmates who are forced to endure it, especially those subjected to confinement for long periods of time,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. "The damage inflicted by solitary confinement hinders formerly incarcerated individuals' ability to effectively rejoin society at the end of their sentence. As a member of the Congressional Second Chance Task Force, I know that by eliminating solitary confinement in New York City's jails, we will improve rates of rehabilitation and reduce recidivism in a fairer, more humane criminal justice system."

Congressman Adriano Espaillat said, “In New York City jails, as in jurisdictions across the nation, solitary confinement is known to impose severe suffering and deterioration on an individual’s mental and physical well-being. Solitary confinement causes heart disease, anxiety, depression, psychosis, and self-mutilation. Prolonged exposure is directly linked to grave outcomes, including death—a fact which New York City’s prisons are no stranger to. The continued use of solitary confinement makes our City’s jails less safe, especially for Black New Yorkers, who account for approximately 49% of the population in state prisons and 61% of those held in solitary confinement.”

Congressman Dan Goldman is committed to improving outcomes for formerly incarcerated individuals and is a member of the Second Chance Task Force.

In June, Goldman cosponsored the ‘Clean Slate Act’ to automatically seal federal arrest records for individuals not convicted and records for individuals convicted of low-level, nonviolent drug offenses as well as establishing new procedures to allow individuals to petition to seal records for other nonviolent offenses that are not automatically sealed.

Read the full letter here or below:

Dear City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams:

We are grateful for your leadership on the number of issues facing individuals and families throughout our communities, including your engagement in criminal justice reforms and your efforts to end solitary confinement by the New York City Department of Corrections. As Members of New York City’s congressional delegation, we write today to express our strong support for swift action from the New York City Council, before the end of the Council’s current term, to end the use of solitary confinement in our City’s jails. It is our belief that the United States has a moral obligation to meet its foundational promise of guaranteed justice for all, including by ending the use of solitary confinement at all levels of government and by implementing safe and effective alternative strategies for confinement in its place.

In New York City’s jails, as in jurisdictions across the nation, solitary confinement is known to impose severe suffering and deterioration on an individual’s mental and physical well-being. Solitary confinement causes heart disease, anxiety, depression, psychosis, and self-mutilation. Prolonged exposure is directly linked to grave outcomes, including death—a fact which New York City’s prisons are no stranger to. You know their cases and like us, you know their names – Erick Tavira, Layleen Polanco, Kalief Browder, Andy Henriquez, Bradley Ballard, Jason Echeverria, Brandon Rodriguez, and countless others have died because of solitary confinement in New York City’s jails. As a direct result, the continued use of solitary confinement makes our City’s jails less safe, especially for Black New Yorkers, who account for approximately 49% of the population in state prisons and 61% of those held in solitary confinement.

Indeed, ending the torturous practice of solitary confinement need not be accompanied by any trade-offs in prison safety. Instead proven, results from alternate programs to solitary confinement—which utilize separation without isolation, in addition to out-of-cell congregate engagement and programming—have shown dramatic reductions in violence in both jails and outside communities, as well as reductions in instances of self-harm. Recent polling from Data for Progress also indicates that reforms to curtail or permanently end solitary confinement have broad public support. Thus, with both the public that we serve and the available science favoring the end of solitary confinement, we believe that now represents a unique moment in our history for all levels of government—federal, state, and local—to act together to end this harmful practice for good.

Our Congressional delegation last wrote to the New York City Council about the need to end solitary confinement in December of 2021. In the time since considerable progress has been made to advance justice on this matter, as in March 2022, the state of New York began its implementation of the all-important HALT Solitary Confinement Act, which limits solitary confinement in New York State prisons to consecutive days or 20 days within a 60-day period. This important law also banned the use of the practice for people with mental illness and for other vulnerable groups. However, recent lawsuits allege that the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) is still finding loopholes in order to avoid complying with HALT’s requirements, and a March 2023 comprehensive report by the Correctional Association of New York cited DOCCS’s overall lack of adherence and failure to implement HALT’s requirements as a major issue. In turn, New York City’s prisoners are likely to continue to be subject to the tortuous practice of solitary confinement without additional action at all levels of government.

We strongly encourage the New York City Council to take advantage of its current historic opportunity and to act before the end of the Council’s current term to end the torturous and deadly practice of solitary confinement in our City. In doing so, New York City has the opportunity to serve as a model for the rest of the nation and to act on the side of justice.

We appreciate your urgency on this critical matter, and we thank you for all of your work to help our City create a more equitable and just criminal justice system.

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