The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The Assembly, Senate and Gov. Eliot Spitzer developed compromise legislation this summer because the first bill that passed faced an almost certain veto.

This year's Senate approval of the bill will still stand in 2008. The Assembly has not ruled out reconvening this year, but it appears unlikely.

The Mental Health Association of New York State had hoped to see passage this year, but, "Every indication we have is that they remain fully supportive, and when they come back early next year, hopefully we'll see a ... bill," said Glenn Liebman, head of the group.

The Assembly fully expects the bill to be passed and enacted, said Sisa Moyo, a spokeswoman for Silver, D-Manhattan. The governor is expected to sign the legislation.

If approved, the measure would require the state Department of Correctional Services to set up residential treatment units for inmates with serious psychiatric illnesses.

The inmates would be offered at least four hours of therapeutic programming and/or treatment out of their cell a day, five days a week. The original legislation would have banned solitary confinement -- also called the box.

Opponents of the box said isolation in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell and lack of treatment worsen psychiatric conditions and punish inmates for behaviors connected with their illnesses.

Serious mental illness affects about 12 percent of the prison population in the state, or some 8,000 inmates, according to the bill's sponsors.

Besides treating mentally ill inmates more humanely, the legislation would make prisons safer, sponsors have said.

Correction officers would get training on working with prisoners who have psychiatric disabilities.

The state Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities would monitor the program.

The governor was considering a veto of the first bill because it would be costly, the prisons would lose some discipline control measures and he believed an April settlement of a lawsuit filed on behalf of mentally ill inmates rendered legislation unnecessary.

The settlement with the state called for giving severely mentally ill inmates in the box at least two hours a day of out-of-cell treatment, developing residential programs for about 400 prisoners in this population and other changes.

To comply with the settlement, this year's budget includes more than $50 million for construction and $2 million each to the state Office of Mental Health and the Department of Correctional Services for staffing.

If the pending legislation passes, the budget will include an extra $12 million in 2008-09, $19 million in 2009-10 and $29 million in 2010-11, Spitzer spokesman Matt Anderson said.

Other provisions of the bill:

€Severely mentally ill inmates would be diverted or taken out of solitary if the term of the isolation could be more than 30 days.

€Inmates in the box who have minor mental illnesses or who don't need much intervention would be assessed by a clinician within 14 days.

The state would have 14 days to decide if a prisoner found to have severe mental illness should be removed from solitary.

€Prison officials could keep inmates in isolation if removing them could risk safety and security.

€Inmates with mental illness who remained in solitary would receive out-of-cell therapeutic care at least two hours a day, five days a week.

There would be a lag time for much of the bill of two years from when the first residential mental-health unit built by the prison system was completed, but no later than July 1, 2011.

http://www.stargazettenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071222/NEWS01/71
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