The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

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.

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.
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