Banning solitary confinement for mentally ill, redux
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- January
- 5
Advocates of banning solitary confinement for prisoners with serious mental illness said they were happy to see that state Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R-Fayette, Seneca County, reintroduced a bill on the matter for this legislative session. The bill, sponsored by Nozzolio and Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, passed both houses last year, after previously getting attention only in the Democrat-led Assembly. Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City, co-sponsored the legislation in the GOP-led Senate. Then-Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, vetoed it. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, just took office, but he hasn’t indicated how he would act on this issue.
Proponents say the legislation is needed because prisoners with serious mental illness are not getting appropriate treatment, and they often end up in solitary confinement, also known as the “box”, because of behaviors associated with their illness. Once in solitary, they further decline. The bill calls for setting up special treatment facilities for mentally ill prisoners.
Pataki said in his veto message that prisons can’t function properly if they can’t “impose disciplinary segregation to protect inmates and staff from those who are unwilling to adhere to even the most minimum levels of civilized behavior”. Money was another reason for the veto—the state estimated it would cost between $280 million and $380 million to set up the treatment facilities and between $96 million and $131 million a year to operate it. The prison system and state Office of Mental Health have expanded their treatment of mentally ill inmates, and current services are adequate, Pataki wrote.
For those interested in tracking the bill, it is S333, and you can check its progress on the Legislature’s public information page: http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menuf.cgi.
This entry was posted
on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 7:50 pm by Cara Matthews.
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