By Bryan Miller and Julie McCaffrey
NEW YORK CITY, NY – After New York City Mayor Eric Adams vetoed a measure to ban the use of solitary confinement in city jails recently, NY Councilmember Carlina L. Rivera pledged to override the veto, charging she is “disappointed that Mayor Adams decided to veto legislation…in our dysfunctional and abusive jail system.”
This comes after Initiative 549 was passed by the City Council in what Rivera said was a “long battle against misinformation.”
Councilmember Rivera said, “there is actual evidence of bans on solitary confinement making jails safer in other U.S. localities,” adding, “due to decades of disinvestment and underinvestment, individuals in need of mental health or substance use services repeatedly end up in the jail system, and instead of receiving the treatment they need, they end up in solitary confinement.”
Initiative 549 would have helped to lessen this, Rivera said, and provide the Department of Correction with procedures to safely and responsibly remove someone from the general jail population. And, Rivera noted, establish procedures to recognize if someone was going to harm themselves or others.
Councilmember Rivera wrote, “advocates, experts, and employees inside the jail system agree that solitary does not make anyone safer — in fact, it only puts people further into harm’s way and is often a death sentence for incarcerated New Yorkers.”
Rivera’s tweet added, “solitary confinement has no place in a system where we urgently need reform.”
The councilmember explained how the legislation moved forward with a large coalition and was passed within the City Council with a “veto-proof majority,” adding the initiative received endorsement of 1199SEIU, which is “the largest healthcare union in the country.”
Rivera concluded by threatening, “I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that we override this misguided veto.”
