NYC Mayor Eric Adams signs emergency order to stop parts of controversial solitary confinement ban in city jails

Mayor Eric Adams’ signed an emergency order Saturday putting the kibosh on parts of a controversial City Council ban on solitary confinement at city jails, The New York Post has learned. 

The City Council’s ban was set to begin Sunday. The new rules would have barred punitive segregation in jails beyond a four-hour “de-escalation” period, and would also change the way jailers transport inmates from place to place by eliminating the practice of keeping them in handcuffs and leg irons while on buses or in other vehicles.

“What do they expect them to do, sit there like school kids?” one law enforcement source said. “Is the City Council speaker going to ride the bus? This is just crazy.”

Local Law 42, which passed in December, seeks to limit the amount of time inmates can be separated from the general population, including at the troubled Rikers Island Correctional Facility.

The mayor’s order modifies the ban and allows the city Department of Corrections to tailor time in solitary confinement to individual inmates’ needs, so an inmate who is in the middle of a violent brawl doesn’t have to be put back into the main population exactly four hours later, officials said.

The law also bans leg irons and handcuffs on inmates aboard city jail buses and other vehicles that carry them to court dates and medical appointments. The mayor’s emergency order would eliminate that part of the ban.

Between 20 and 40 of the Department of Correction vehicles carry about 500 inmates each day, a law enforcement source said.

The mayor issued the “narrowly tailored order” because the ban would be dangerous for those who live and work in the jails, City Hall said.

“The Department of Corrections has been laser focused on reducing violence in our jails to protect both the people in our care and correctional staff who boldly serve our city,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.

A federal monitor appointed to oversee the city’s troubled jails — which have been plagued by violence and drugs — wrote in a letter earlier this month that the law could “actually result in an increased risk of harm to other incarcerated individuals and staff.”

The Correction Officers Benevolent Association has been opposed to the ban it claims would put its officers in harm’s way.

“It’s shocking that as the daughter of a former Correction Officer, Speaker Adams would spearhead this legislation that would have jeopardized the life of her own mother if this was passed when she was an officer,” COBA President Benny Boscio said.

“It’s shocking that as the daughter of a former Correction Officer, Speaker Adams would spearhead this legislation that would have jeopardized the life of her own mother if this was passed when she was an officer,” the statement reads. “We thank Mayor Adams for implementing this critical Executive Order and we will continue to fight vigorously to repeal this dangerous legislation altogether.”

One third of the detainees at Rikers are facing homicide charges and the majority are in for violence, city officials have said.

There were 258 assaults on jail staff, 189 serious injuries to inmates, and 152 slashings and stabbings at Rikers from Dec. 20 to June 19, the most recent data available shows, law enforcement sources said.

State lawmakers limited the practice of solitary confinement in other facilities to no more than 15 consecutive days in 2021. 

In the city, the practice was banned for all inmates 21 and younger after the 2015 death of Kalief Browder, who was jailed at Rikers for three years, most of that time in solitary confinement.