Matthew was seventeen. He’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has struggled with serious drug dependency and a difficult home life. He needed help. Instead, he got locked in “the box.”
This is how notorious New York City jail Rikers Island routinely deals with mentally ill teenagers. But solitary confinement isn’t solving their problems.
While awaiting sentencing on a larceny conviction, Matthew got into a fight with a prison guard, during which, Matthew says, the guard “ripped” Matthew’s rosary off his neck. Matthew was sent to “disciplinary segregation” – one of the many names for solitary confinement – for 250 days. This adolescent boy spent more than two-thirds of a year in a small cell, alone for 23 hours a day. He was not able to go to school; instead, he was given worksheets to complete. “I talk to myself,” Matthew said of his daily life, “This is crazy. I really feel like I’m bugging out in that cell.”
Matthew’s story is one of three in a by the City of New York Board of Correction about Rikers Island. Each of the young men profiled was placed in punitive segregation at Rikers for more than 200 days. All of them were teenagers. All three suffer from serious mental illness, and they all have fathers who have been incarcerated.
Rikers is part of the adult system, but teens make up about 5% of the average daily population. This is in part because New York State law punishes 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, regardless of their offense. About a fourth of teens aged 16, 17, and 18, may be held in solitary as punishment on any given day at Rikers. And 71% of those kids will have been diagnosed as mentally ill.
Young people are different than adults. American law, including Supreme Court cases banning the and for children, recognizes the distinction. And psychological experts have commented on the extreme vulnerability of children in prison to developmental harm and mental deterioration, including depression, hallucination, and increased likelihood of self-harm, when held in solitary confinement. Yet Rikers continues to hold adolescent prisoners – on an average day, hundreds of them – in solitary confinement.
But some help might be coming for these kids. In September, the City of New York Board of Correction to start the process of making new rules to govern the use of solitary confinement at Rikers. Although overdue, this plan to regulate the practice has the potential to bring New York City into closer conformity with international human-rights standards – and to decrease the chances that its jailing practices are causing long-term damage to young prisoners. In writing its new rules, the Board of Corrections should place an outright ban on the use of solitary confinement on children and adolescents. The Board should also place limits on the time any prisoner spends in isolation, and it should closely monitor the length of stays in isolation, and the reasons for them.
By committing itself to drafting new regulations, the New York City Department of Correction joins a growing trend in the reduction of the use of solitary confinement. A number of state prison systems across the country – including those in , Illinois, and Maine – have in recent years reformed and reduced their use of solitary confinement due to financial, safety, and humanitarian concerns. And less than two months ago, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a new directive regulating the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention facilities; the ICE regulations now require reporting of any placement in isolation for longer than 14 days, and monitor vulnerable detainees, including children, even more closely. New York City should follow the lead of these other correctional and detention facilities in aiming to permanently change the way solitary confinement is used in this country: from a routine detention practice to a measure of extreme last resort – and never as a means of holding children.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Criminal Law Reform
ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law AllowsACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law Allows
WASHINGTON – A federal lawsuit brought today by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., and Jenner & Block LLP challenges the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for unlawfully incarcerating people longer than the law allows under the First Step Act. The lawsuit contends that the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated. Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs. Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison. “Every extra unlawful day our clients spend in prison is a serious injustice,” said Emma Andersson, deputy director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “It is egregious that the Bureau of Prisons is imprisoning people for months longer than the law allows. The government must follow through on its legal obligation to get people out of prison on time and back into their communities, where they belong.” Additional comments below from: Vanessa Crowe, plaintiff: “Time is what I owed for my wrongdoing, and I have paid my time. But I should not have to spend more time in prison than the law allows. I often reflect on what I will miss during the months after when I should be out of prison. I will miss work and lose out on wages that would help me get back on my feet. I could be a tax paying citizen instead of a burden on society. But most of all, I will miss more precious time with my family. My family and I are ready to tum the page on this period in our lives — we are all ready to start a new life, a life with purpose, hope, and healing together. I want to start that life when I am legally entitled to start it-not five months later.” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C.: “There’s no excuse for the Bureau of Prisons to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released. This law has been on the books for six years. The Bureau of Prisons has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” Betsy Henthorne, partner at Jenner & Block: “It has been six years since the First Step Act was signed, but despite Congress’s clear directives, the Bureau of Prisons continues to hold thousands of people in prison longer than the law allows. We should and do expect better—it’s past time for the BOP to ensure that those who have earned their release are able to return home to their families and communities according to the law Congress passed.” -
Press ReleaseSep 2024
National Security
Prisoners' Rights
ACLU Statement on Senator’s Discriminatory Questioning of Civil Rights Leader Maya BerryACLU Statement on Senator’s Discriminatory Questioning of Civil Rights Leader Maya Berry
WASHINGTON — American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, released the following statement regarding Sen. John Kennedy’s questioning of Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute: “The American Civil Liberties Union condemns this discriminatory and vitriolic attack on Maya Berry, a renowned civil rights leader, and joins the chorus of voices from across the political spectrum in denouncing these remarks. “To use a hearing about the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and antisemitic hate crimes to launch personal and discriminatory attacks on an expert witness they’ve invited to testify is both outrageous and inappropriate. This kind of racist rhetoric should be widely condemned. It has no place in Congress, or in politics. “Maya Berry is a courageous and compassionate leader who has spent her entire career working to strengthen our democracy and protect the rights of Arab American communities, and other vulnerable communities who face discrimination and targeting because of their ethnicity, race, or religion.” -
Ohio Supreme CourtSep 2024
Prisoners' Rights
State v. MorrisState v. Morris
This case in the Ohio Supreme Court concerns the scope of the state constitutional right to counsel. The police in this case interrogated the defendant, Isaiah Morris, without mentioning his already-appointed counsel or asking him to waive his right to counsel. This procedural circumstance risks confusing criminal defendants and undermining their state constitutional rights. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Ohio and WilmerHale, filed an amicus brief arguing that merely providing a defendant notice of Miranda rights falls short of the bare minimum requirements for a valid waiver. -
Oregon Supreme CourtSep 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Huskey v. Oregon Department of CorrectionsHuskey v. Oregon Department of Corrections
This case in the Oregon Supreme Court centers on whether Article I, Section 41(3) of the Oregon Constitution, which provides that Oregon prisoners lack legally enforceable rights to prison jobs and training, bars prisoners from collecting damages relating to lost prison jobs and training caused by the alleged breach of a settlement agreement by prison officials. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Oregon, filed an amicus brief arguing that that plaintiff Arnold Huskey, an incarcerated individual whose identity was used in Department of Corrections training materials, is entitled to damages notwithstanding Article I, Section 41(3), because plaintiffs in contract disputes never have to show standalone legal rights to the damages they claim. Instead, they need only show that the damages were reasonably foreseeable consequences of the alleged breach of contract.