By C1 Staff
NEW YORK — Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte is pushing for jails to adopt his recommendations to reform city jails, including the elimination of “punitive segregation” and the creation of a new wing on Rikers for more dangerous inmates.
AM New York reports that Ponte has been criticized by elected officials for the increase of violence at Rikers. He said, during a City Council hearing last month, that the overuse of solitary confinement comes from the “small number” of inmates who commit infractions while in jail.
He hopees to eliminate segregation entirely for adolescents and decrease the maximum time for the punishment from 90 days to 30.
“By enabling the department to manage its most dangerous inmates more securely, [the facility] will create substantial opportunities for more meaningful reform and reduce the use of punitive segregation,” Ponte said in a statement.
The new wing would include several cameras, a larger staff-to-inmate ratio, a law library and religious services, and require inmates to have t least seven hours of out-of-cell time.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said proposals were a step in the right direction.
“We cannot continue on a path where violence is commonplace and inmates are treated in a manner that leaves them more broken than when they came in,” he said in a statement.
Rikers recently opened a new wing for transgender women. Inmates will be voluntarily placed in the 30-bed unit, which was created with the assistance of LGBT advocacy groups.