By Rocco Parascandola
Newsday
NEW YORK — For years, prisoners in the city have been allowed to wear their own clothes whenever they appear in court before trial. Now, however, authorities have decided that it would easier to track these prisoners - and cut down on contraband - by requiring them to wear a uniform.
The policy change, however, will unfairly stigmatize these prisoners, says the director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society.
“When someone is a pretrial detainee, the government shouldn’t have the right to impose that on someone who has the presumption of innocence,” John Boston says. “The government has to earn that.”
The detainees will still be able to wear their own clothes at their trials, said Stephen Morello, a spokesman for the city Department of Correction. The new rules are designed to cut down on the drugs and blades often found hidden in inmates’ seams or hems, he said.
“As long as you have clothes constantly streaming in, you have that challenge,” he said. “This is a safety issue.”
Boston, however, says the correction department already has a rigorous security system in place to keep out contraband, and that forcing those presumed innocent to wear uniforms will intimidate and break down prisoners, especially now that they will be required to wear them at pretrial hearings.
“Many things would be easier for the Department of Corrections,” Boston says. “They could keep inmates handcuffed at all times. Being easy and being right in a free society are not the same thing.”
The new rules were issued in June by the Board of Correction, which oversees the Department of Correction. Morello said it is not yet clear how much it will cost to put the system in place or when it will be instituted, though it appears unlikely to be this year.
The correction department still has to figure out how to upgrade its laundry system. Now, it cleans the green pants and shirts worn by those convicted of a crime - about 20 percent of the 14,000 inmates housed in the city’s 12 jails.
The remaining inmates - the pretrial detainees - are allowed to wash their own clothes.
Most jails throughout the country require all prisoners, regardless of status, to wear uniforms, including Nassau County’s 2,000 prisoners and the 1,700 in Suffolk.
It is rare for an inmate to escape, though last month, a man facing charges of stealing cans of coffee from a Brooklyn supermarket slipped out of a jail on Rikers Island.
Sources say the escapee, Nikholas Dadiani, apparently slipped past three security checkpoints by blending in with staffers and visitors dressed in civilian garb.
Dadiani was caught before he got off the island, brought back to jail and charged with escape. Three correction officers have been suspended while the incident is investigated.
Copyright 2008 Newsday