The development stems from a lawsuit brought against Jefferson County and sheriff in March, alleging they were violating the Eighth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, state civil rights law and state human rights law by denying detainees at the Jefferson County Jail continuing access to MOUD prescribed by a doctor.

“This is the first time that a court has recognized on a class-wide basis the right of people with OUD to receive treatment while in custody.”

As the ACLU has brought suits to ensure that people in states including Massachusetts and Maine could continue receiving MOUD while incarcerated, judges have handed down preliminary injunctions in individual cases. Similarly, prior to the ACLU’s class action in New York, the NYCLU brought a suit against Jefferson County to ensure that an individual plaintiff, referred to in court filings as PG, could continue MOUD treatment while detained in the county jail. As Filter reported in September, this resulted in a preliminary injunction that forced the county to continue providing treatment for PG.

But the new injunction represents a departure from such cases. The order requires the jail to provide the agonists buprenorphine and methadone to all people previously prescribed these medications.

Three medications for opioid use disorder are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Buprenorphine and methadone are agonists, meaning they activate the brain’s opioid receptors, while the third, naltrexone, attaches to the opioid receptors and blocks the effects of opioids. Despite the federal government’s authorization of these medications, less than 13 percent of all incarceration institutions across the country provide any form of MOUD to detainees, according to the Jail & Prison Opioid Project.

“This is the first time that a court has recognized on a class-wide basis the right of people with OUD to receive treatment for their disability while in custody,” NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney Antony Gemmell said in an email statement to Filter.

“The Court’s decision affords lifesaving relief for class members, and sends a clear message to jails about their obligation to place science before stigma by providing access to MOUD.”

In his ruling, the judge also wrote that he thought the case would succeed in a final decision.

“Plaintiffs argue that they are ‘substantially likely’ to succeed on the merits of their case under Title II of the ADA and Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court agrees,” he wrote.

A lawyer representing the county in the lawsuit did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

State Law Soon Due to Take Effect

In October, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill mandating that jails and prisons around the state provide all three forms of FDA-approved MOUD. The law has not yet taken effect, and the sponsor of the bill, Manhattan Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, said the ongoing denial of care in Jefferson County proved why her legislation was necessary.

“I am deeply disappointed that Jefferson County would withhold MAT, but this is exactly why my law was needed.”

“To deny a person who is sick and suffering access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is the epitome of cruel and unusual. What’s more, the law that I passed in 2021 will require every state prison and county jail to provide people who are incarcerated with access to MAT,” Rosenthal, who is Chair of the Assembly Committee on Social Services, wrote in an email statement to Filter.

“The fact that this law will not take effect for another five months (October 2022), should not mean that people have to fight tooth and nail to access these proven lifesaving drugs in court,” she continued. “I am deeply disappointed that Jefferson County would withhold MAT from a person who needs it, but this is exactly why my law was needed.”

Facilities around the state must make significant progress in the next five months to be in compliance with the law.

A spokesperson for New York’s Office of Addiction Services and Supports said 43 locally-managed county jails (approximately three-quarters of those in the state) currently provide at least one form of MOUD.

“We are actively working with counties to provide support and assistance in order to implement MAT services in correctional facilities where they do not already exist, and get these programs up and running as soon as possible,” Evan Frost wrote in an email to Filter.

Meanwhile, 25 of the 44 prisons run by the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision currently offer at least one form of MOUD, an agency spokesperson told Filter, adding that the department plans to have all of them providing medications by the time the law takes effect.

“DOCCS strongly believes in the value of medication-assisted treatment programs and has continued to expand available treatment to additional correctional facilities,” the spokesperson said. “As of [May 1], there were 401 individuals under custody receiving MAT. DOCCS accepts individuals on MAT from county jails and continues their medication.”

Photograph via Piqsels/Public Domain

The post Judge Orders County to Offer OUD Meds to All Jailed Patients, in US First appeared first on Filter.

In April 2021, as first reported by Filter, the NYCLU filed a lawsuit against three Jefferson County Correctional Facility officials on behalf of a 36-year-old man with opioid use disorder (OUD) who is identified in court documents as “P.G.” Anticipating arrest after an alleged probation violation in late 2020, P.G. knew this particular jail would strip him of his prescribed methadone because he’d been incarcerated there once before, and had been forced into withdrawal. He was terrified.

The NYCLU suit filed on his behalf argues that withholding medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) from incarcerated people violates constitutional and civil rights, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Jefferson County officials “sought to punish P.G. for pursuing this litigation, placing him in solitary confinement, where he remains to this day.” 

Four days after P.G. was arrested in September, a judge issued a preliminary injunction in his favor, compelling jail staff to provide P.G. with his daily methadone for however long he was detained there. It was a landmark ruling for the Second Circuit, the Court of Appeals with jurisdiction in New York State. 

What has not previously been public is what happened next. According to an NYCLU complaint filed on February 7, shortly after Jefferson County officials received the injunction they “sought to punish [P.G.] for pursuing this litigation, placing him in solitary confinement, where he remains to this day.” 

Two weeks after he was first moved into isolation, P.G. filed an administrative grievance. It was denied two months later. He remained in isolation throughout. On February 1, 2022, following months of repeated pleas to be released from his “cramped” cell, P.G’s NYCLU counsel received confirmation that jail officials intended to maintain confinement “for as long as [they] are required to transport P.G. for daily methadone dosing outside the jail.”

They attribute his extended segregation to COVID precautions. Since the jail isn’t licensed to dispense methadone, the injunction means P.G. is escorted six mornings a week to the clinic he was attending prior to his arrest, which is a five-minute drive away. On Sundays and holidays, he is driven to a different facility about an hour away.

Antony Gemmell, a NYCLU senior staff attorney representing P.G., told Filter that the defense “reeks of bad faith.”

Both treatment sites already have “no-contact” protocols for mitigating COVID transmission. In addition, P.G. never actually goes inside, but waits in a designated outdoor area where staff wearing personal protective equipment bring him his methadone, which he consumes under socially distanced supervision.

The corrections officers who accompany P.G. to his methadone appointments are not required to quarantine.

“Everyone in the prison—the guards, administrators—go home at night. So they were out in the world,” New York State Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal told Filter. “By that logic, everyone should be in solitary.” 

Except for methadone appointments and a 40-minute window every other day for phone calls and showers, P.G. remains in isolation. The United Nations defines solitary confinement as isolation of more than 22 hours per day, and defines isolation in excess of 15 consecutive days as torture.

The NYCLU is requesting that the court declare jail leadership to be in violation of the First Amendment and of state civil and human rights laws, and that it compel the defendants to cease retaliatory practices against P.G. immediately. A judge has not yet ruled on any of the new or ongoing allegations.

“Our goal is obviously for our client to be removed from solitary confinement,” Gemmell said. “That has absolutely no logical basis.”

In prolonged isolation, P.G.’s “mental health deteriorating by the day.”

According to the NYCLU complaint, multiple officers have openly characterized P.G.’s prolonged isolation as “punishment for his forcing the jail’s hand on his treatment.” Attorneys from Barclay Damon, the law firm representing the Jefferson County officials named in the suit, did not respond to Filter‘s requests for comment by publication time. Neither did a detective from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office.

“Jefferson County jail officials have responded to the Court’s ruling for P.G. in the worst possible way: by punishing P.G. for seeking life-sustaining medical treatment,” Gemmell said. Their “isolation of P.G.—which they have said will last indefinitely—is the definition of cruelty.”

The February 7 complaint states that under these inhumane conditions, P.G.’s “mental health [is] deteriorating by the day.”

Since fentanyl began saturating the illicit drug supply in the mid-2010s, P.G. has lost more than 10 former classmates to overdose, “including most of his close friends.” He himself narrowly survived an overdose after enduring forced withdrawal from his prescribed methadone while detained at another correctional facility, which banned the medication at that time.

“Methadone treatment has changed my life,” P.G. told Filter in April 2021, when the lawsuit began. “I’m drug-free, I have a stable job and I just purchased a home. For the first time in years, I have hope for the future, but all of that could be lost if my medication is interrupted.”

In October 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation, sponsored by Rosenthal, to guarantee access to prescribed MOUD for people detained in jails and prisons across the state. The legislation has not yet taken effect.

Photograph via New York State Senate

The post Prisoner Who Sued for Access to OUD Meds Is in Solitary as “Retaliation” appeared first on Filter.

New York City Councilmembers Shekar Krishnan and Carmen De La Rosa, as well as advocates and members of the Fortune Society, are participating in the rally.

As many as 200 detainees within the Rikers Island Detention Complex have announced a hunger strike to protest the conditions of their detention, Christopher Boyle, the director of data research and policy for the New York County Defender Services, told Filter. The strike began on January 7, he said.

“At some point, you hit a breaking point” he said, noting that the Robert N. Davoren Center (RNDC), the Rikers facility where detainees are protesting, has been described to him as an add-on space that’s not well heated.

“It’s cold right now. And you’re cold. And the water’s cold when you try to take a shower. And there’s black mold in the shower and the food is terrible, and you’re not getting [recreation] time, and you can’t get out, people are fighting and nobody’s stopping the fights because there’s no officers on the floor. Eventually you gotta do something.”

In phone calls to Boyle, detainees have said they’re not getting mail and are missing medical and psychiatric appointments because guards are not present to take them, leaving those detained in lockdown.

“The unfolding hunger strike is another example of why the humanitarian crisis at Rikers must be addressed immediately.”

At the same time, COVID cases have recently surged in the facility. The Correctional Health Services Report from Tuesday said that 323 people detained on Rikers have tested positive for COVID. (The reported positivity rate is down significantly from a week ago). Only 45.2 percent of people held on the island have received their first vaccination dose. More than 82 percent of the people detained on Rikers on January 12 were being held before receiving a trial.

“The unfolding hunger strike at the Robert N. Davoren Center (RNDC), one of eight jails on Rikers Island, is another example of why the humanitarian crisis at Rikers must be addressed immediately,” JoAnne Page, president and CEO of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit providing services to formerly incarcerated people, said in a press release before the rally.

“While the surge in COVID-19 cases among people detained at Rikers may require certain measures to protect the health of staff and other detained people, timely access to medical care, regular recreation, and contact with defense attorneys and loved ones must never be denied.”

A Department of Corrections spokesperson denied that a hunger strike is taking place.

“There is no hunger strike,” the spokesperson told Filter in an emailed statement. “A group of detainees were refusing institutional food and instead eating commissary food. The warden is engaged with them and addressing their concerns, and our employees have been working tirelessly to keep all who work and live in our facilities safe.”

Ongoing Failures to Address a Longstanding Crisis

Yet the detainees’ attempt to draw attention to their conditions is just the latest effort to highlight the dilapidation of the troubled jail complex, which has remained in disarray despite years of federal oversight by a court-appointed monitor. Fifteen detainees died at Rikers last year.

In September, a report found that skyrocketing levels of self-harm had occurred in the facility since the pandemic started. Days later, lawmakers visited the complex and described the conditions there as a humanitarian crisis. Touring the intake area, they found fecal matter on the floor, shower stalls used as cells and garbage scattered. A detainee attempted suicide in front of the legislators. One assemblymember called Rikers “horror island” and said that the conditions faced by those held were “just short of a concentration camp.”

Yet the city has taken few steps to remedy the crisis. At a City Council hearing in September, the former first deputy mayor sought to place responsibility on the state, calling for the governor to sign the Less Is More Act. (Governor Kathy Hochul did sign the legislation, which stopped people from being held in jail while awaiting trial for technical parole violations, just two days later.)

At the same Council hearing, the Department of Corrections commissioner pushed to limit staff absences, arguing that solving rampant officer absence could ensure better control of the detention facility.

Yet high rates of absence have continued. At a Board of Corrections meeting on January 11, officials said that 2,317 staff were out sick.

News reports have helped cast light on the dysfunction on the island. The New York Times has reported that detainees have taken “near total control” over units. On January 12, the Times released footage showing detainees watching a fight between two men, which a gang leader had reportedly orchestrated for his own entertainment.

“Our clients in custody are beginning this year with fear, anxiety and ongoing denial of their basic human rights.”

And while the de Blasio administration’s steps to improve the conditions on Rikers were limited, new Mayor Eric Adams’ DOC Commissioner Louis Molina rolled back changes to sick leave policy implemented under de Blasio, which had made it harder for officers to miss work. Molina also removed a respected head of investigations, who processed 8,800 internal probes in the last year.

In December, the federal monitor overseeing Rikers said that conditions on the island have deteriorated.

“Despite six years of striving to implement the required practices, the Department’s efforts have been unsuccessful in remediating the serious problems that gave rise to the Consent Judgment. Instead, conditions have progressively and substantially worsened,” the monitor’s 12th report said.

At the January 11 Board of Corrections meeting, attorneys described continuing chaos. “Our clients in custody are beginning this year with fear, anxiety and ongoing denial of their basic human rights,” said Julia Solomons, a social worker with the Bronx Defenders.

Emailed by Filter to ask what Mayor Adams was doing to fix the dysfunction on Rikers, a spokesperson for his office responded, “Please contact Dept. of Corrections.”

“By far the most important step we can take is decarceration.”

Progressive lawmakers have continued calling for decarceration—a step de Blasio did not pursue on a large scale, despite public pressure.

“By far the most important step we can take is decarceration, premised on community supports, care resources, and economic rights so that those released can lead fulfilling lives,” Councilmember Tiffany Cabán said in a text statement to Filter.

“The mayor has the power to release some of the census, and to address the fact that the commissioner recently fired the oversight officer, the council and mayor have the power to reduce violence by ending solitary confinement, and we all can do more to urge DAs to stop sending people to Rikers.”

Cabán also called for the City Council to pass a bill banning solitary confinement, which its previous speaker, Corey Johnson, did not allow to come to a vote. DOC Commissioner Molina said on January 11 that replacing solitary confinement with a new disciplinary system—which was supposed to be implemented in the fall—is a “top priority.” But new Mayor Eric Adams has expressed support for keeping solitary in place.

“Our neighbors are resorting to a hunger strike in order to demand their basic dignity. We stand with them in their demands.”

“From physical violence to the denial of services as basic as mental and medical care, recreation, mail, a law library and more, our city is not only failing those held on Rikers, it is risking their very lives,” Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani said in an email statement to Filter. “Our neighbors held inside are resorting to a hunger strike in order to demand their basic dignity. We stand with them in their demands, and call on everyone who can reduce the jail population—judges, DAs, the mayor, the governor—to do so immediately.”

Boyle said the only means to remedy the situation would be for an organization outside the pressures of New York City politics to step in.

“Nothing will be changed unless the federal monitor comes in. The Nunez agreement allows for that,” he said, referencing a consent decree that stems from a lawsuit brought against the DOC alleging unnecessary force in city jails. “It’s just they haven’t pulled the trigger. The federal government needs to come in and take control over Rikers, period. That’s the only thing that’ll change anything.”

Photograph by Doc Searls via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Rikers Strike Against Horrendous Conditions Draws Political Support appeared first on Filter.

The bill, which takes effect in March 2022, will enable New Yorkers on Medicaid to receive methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone waiting for approval from their insurer. The move is expected to save hundreds of lives a year, as well as more than $50 million in annual Medicaid savings.

Activists had pushed for the removal of prior authorization for MOUD for years. In 2020, then-governor Andrew Cuomo issued a last-minute veto on a bill that would have removed them for Medicaid recipients—despite signing a partner measure that removed them for people who had private insurance, effectively creating a two-tiered system for New Yorkers with opioid use disorder.

Hochul’s signing of this bill “really sets the tone for her administration, of how this administration is going to be 360-degrees different from Governor Cuomo,” VOCAL-NY Director of Drug Policy Jasmine Budnella told Filter.

The legislation was initially part of a trio of harm reduction bills VOCAL and other advocates had been urging Hochul to sign upon her inauguration in August. The other two, which decriminalized syringes for drug use and guaranteed MOUD access to people in jails and prisons, were signed in October. The Medicaid bill was left out without public explanation.

A week before Hochul signed the two other harm reduction measures, New York implemented a formulary that standardized which drugs Medicaid covered without prior authorization. But Budnella said that the change has created confusion for some MOUD recipients, which may have contributed to Hochul’s decision to sign the bill now.

“I am much more hopeful than I ever have been,” said Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal.

A spokesperson for the governor did not state whether implementation of the formulary influenced her decision to sign the bill, nor whether the prior authorization legislation received more scrutiny than the harm reduction measures signed in October.

“Upon taking office less than five months ago Governor Hochul began the process of reviewing nearly 500 pieces of legislation that were awaiting the executive’s signature,” the spokesperson stated to Filter. “[S]he is proud to have signed multiple new bills into law that expand harm reduction policies.”

Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, one of the Medicaid bill’s sponsors, told Filter the signing was “a great holiday present for a lot of people.”

Pointing to Hochul’s selection of Chinazo Cunningham as the commissioner of the Office of Addiction Services and Supports and Mary Bassett as the Health Commissioner, Rosenthal said that Hochul’s early decisions around harm reduction have been encouraging.

“I’m hopeful that she brings a much different understanding to the issue and that she understands that these are not just numbers and stats,” Rosenthal told Filter. “These are real people that we have an obligation to help. I am much more hopeful than I ever have been about the state and the governor being serious about affecting change for people with substance use disorder.”

Opioid-involved overdose has skyrocketed during the pandemic. More than 2,000 people in New York City alone died of overdose in 2020, representing the highest death toll since the city began tracking such data.

Photograph via New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports

The post Hochul Signs Long-Awaited Bill Removing MOUD Barriers for New Yorkers on Medicaid appeared first on Filter.

The report, which the civil rights organization described as the “most comprehensive analysis yet released of over 20 years of the NYPD’s handling of misconduct complaints,” looked at 180,7000 specific allegations involving 35,435 police officers. Yet just over 2 percent of total allegations resulted in any form of discipline, and less than 1 percent resulted in a loss of vacation days or any more serious penalty.

The report additionally found stark racial disparities in terms of who reported experiencing police misconduct. Black people were six times more likely to report misconduct than white people. And 93 percent of minors who alleged that they experienced police misconduct were people of color.

“The numbers make clear that NYPD oversight and discipline is largely a fiction.”

The allegations range from using offensive language to excessive use of force. If the CCRB substantiates an allegation, it can recommend training, command discipline—which can result in an officer losing up to 10 vacation days—or charges and specifications. If the CCRB recommends the last category, a trial is held by the NYPD’s administrative prosecution unit.

“The numbers make clear that NYPD oversight and discipline is largely a fiction,” Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU’s legal director, said in a press release. “With revelations that only 2 percent of complaints result in officer discipline, that the NYPD overrides [Civilian Complaint Review Board] recommendations in substantiated cases three out of four times, and that misconduct disproportionately affects New Yorkers of color, it is little wonder why the City concealed misconduct records for decades and police unions fought to keep them secret. Now that the secret is out, the NYPD’s monopoly over discipline must end.”

Even after the June 2020 repeal of 50-A, a provision that hid the disciplinary records of police, corrections staff and firefighters, unions fought to keep the records shielded from the public. While publicly supporting the disclosure of police disciplinary records via the freedom of information process, the city’s law department fought a separate legal battle to shield misconduct records from disclosure in federal court.

In 67 percent of cases substantiated by the CCRB, the NYPD chose not to hand down any punishment.

The NYCLU analysis found that 12,890 complaints, or 7 percent of the total allegations, were substantiated by the NYPD—7,302 of them from 2000-2013, and 5,678 during Mayor Bill de Blasio’s time in office. The CCRB, which is an independent oversight board tasked with investigating alleged misconduct by the NYPD, found 29 percent of all complaints against the NYPD were unsubstantiated, meaning not enough evidence existed to say whether an officer violated department guidelines. Twenty-seven percent of complaints were truncated due to uncooperative witnesses or an inability to identify victims, while the CCRB exonerated officers of misconduct in 25 percent of allegations.

In 67 percent of cases that were substantiated by the CCRB, the NYPD chose not to hand down any punishment.

“Mayor de Blasio ran on a platform of police reform, but like his refusal to fire officers who killed Delrawn Small, Antonio Williams, Kawaski Trawick, and officers and officials who engaged in misconduct related to Eric Garner’s killing, this report is emblematic of his legacy of enabling the impunity of the NYPD,” Kesi Foster, a spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, told Filter in an email. “Mayor-elect Adams must learn from the failures of the de Blasio administration, fire officers who brutalize, harass, and abuse New Yorkers, and release all misconduct and discipline records, not just the narrow sliver of records that the NYPD chose to put in its database.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to Filter’s request for comment by publication time. The NYPD meanwhile claimed that the low substantiation rate happened for a reason. “Because of improvements made by the NYPD and CCRB in the last eight years of collaboration, investigations have improved, processes have been streamlined and cooperation has increased between the two agencies,” NYPD Sergeant Edward Riley told Filter. “It is important to note that about 90 percent of NYPD officers go through their entire career without a single substantiated CCRB complaint or departmental charge. An allegation is just that, it is not evidence of misconduct.”

But activists maintain that the low rate of substantiation is due to the CCRB being an ineffective means of regulating the NYPD.

The report shows “that there are vanishingly few consequences for cops who commit misconduct, and such, shows that the NYPD disciplinary system is designed to give the appearance of accountability without providing real transparency or consequences,” Gideon Oliver, a police misconduct attorney, told Filter in an email.

Previous reporting has shown how the NYPD can impede investigations by the CCRB. The oversight board cannot directly obtain officers’ body camera footage, and instead must request the NYPD to provide access. Reporting from ProPublica has found that the NYPD inhibits CCRB investigations by refusing to share its videos and by lying to the CCRB about whether footage exists.

After New Yorkers flooded the CCRB with misconduct allegations last summer during the protests against police brutality, police unions refused to cooperate, saying they would not submit to video questioning. (Misconduct claims decreased in 2020 despite the hundreds of allegations stemming from the protests.)

“It’s clear the NYPD can’t hold itself accountable. We must reduce the size, scope, power and budget of the NYPD.”

Last week, the city council passed legislation that would allow the CCRB to initiate its own investigation into possible misconduct, rather than waiting for a complaint to be filed. Still, the NYPD commissioner will maintain the sole power to impose discipline on officers.

That’s something Council Member Adrienne E. Adams, who sponsored the new legislation, wants to change. “The findings in this report by NYCLU reinforces our call for final authority over discipline to belong to the CCRB,” she told Filter in an email. “New Yorkers deserve greater transparency and accountability when it comes to police misconduct. We should continue to strengthen the ability of the CCRB to access sealed records and have the resources they need to fully investigate, issue findings, and make recommendations for cases.”

“It’s clear the NYPD can’t hold itself accountable,” Foster said. “We must reduce the size, scope, power and budget of the NYPD, and City Council can do that by refusing to reward failed policing strategies and a department that plays by its own rules in next year’s budget. Instead, City Council must prioritize investing in Black, Latinx and other communities of color with non-police safety solutions that create real community safety, like health and mental health care, safe and affordable housing, and education.”

“The next administration must transform the culture and structures that reinforce NYPD impunity,” Dunn told Filter in an email. “This starts with an end to the department’s evasion of its legal responsibility to be transparent and extends to breaking the NYPD’s monopoly over discipline. At the same time, the new mayor must shrink the NYPD’s responsibilities to eliminate community interactions that don’t require the police but do often lead to misconduct and abuse.”

Photograph via Pixabay

The post The NYPD Operates With Near-Impunity, Finds NYCLU Report appeared first on Filter.

De Blasio said that he was not focused on using his authority to grant some 250 people work release, and instead emphasized bolstering the jail’s staffing levels, amid rising outcry over the past week as lawmakers and advocates emphasized the urgency of addressing inhumane conditions.

“The conditions that both detained individuals and correction officers face are an ever-deteriorating human rights catastrophe that is just short of a concentration camp,” Assemblymember Kenny Burgos said. “We wouldn’t allow animals to live in these conditions, yet we allow human beings to live in abject squalor.”

Sen. Alessandra Biaggi described the conditions she witnessed as “horrifying” and “inhumane,” with “neverending” piles of feces and garbage.

Multiple state senators and assemblymembers toured Rikers on September 13, despite attempts by the de Blasio administration to block them from accessing it. 

Senator Jessica Ramos witnessed a man try to kill himself during her visit. She met another man who cut himself to be able to access mental health medication. Sen. Alessandra Biaggi described the conditions she witnessed as “horrifying” and “inhumane,” with “neverending” piles of feces and garbage covering the floor, detainees covered in so many bug bites they appeared to have chickenpox, and detainees locked in solitary shower cells without running water.

In a New York Daily News op-ed, Tiffany Cabán, the Democratic nominee for the 22nd city council district, described detainees not receiving medical care for broken bones, and being left without daily HIV and psychiatric medication.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said during the hearing that the conditions were so bad he was shocked there hadn’t been an “Attica-style uprising,” and thought one might happen while legislators were visiting. 

The conditions at Rikers received renewed attention last week after the facility’s chief medical officer, Ross MacDonald, asked the city council for state or federal assistance. In a letter to Council Speaker Corey Johnson, MacDonald wrote that Rikers Island has experienced a “new and worsening emergency that has developed over the course of the last year.”

Ten detainees have died at Rikers this year. Esias Johnson, 24, was found dead in his cell earlier this month, after jail staff would not take him to court hearings. He was being held on $1 bail.

The family of 42-year-old Robert Jackson, who was found dead in his cell on June 30, alleged on September 13 that he would still be alive if a corrections officer had not walked off the job. The officer left his post after working 20 straight hours, according to the Corrections Officers Benevolent Association. 

An average of more than 1,400 workers called out each day last month, forcing staff who appeared for their shifts to work 16- and 24-hour days. DOC Chief of Staff Dana Wax said that 1,789 of the 8,370 jail staff—about one in five—had called out sick on September 14. 

Department of Corrections Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said that hundreds more officers would be hired, and guards working triple shifts would be given bonuses and free rides to work.

On September 14, de Blasio announced a plan that he said would address the jail’s conditions. Contractors would help clean it; NYPD officers would replace jail guards at courts; the jail would expedite intake processing by reopening areas that had been previously closed; and officers who violated sick leave and didn’t show up to work would receive 30-day unpaid suspensions. 

First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan insisted during the hearing that the city could manage the crisis. He repeatedly called for Governor Kathy Hochul to implement the Less is More Act, which would prevent re-incarcerating people for technical parole violations. According to the Vera Institute, 277 people are in Rikers for a technical parole violation, meaning even if the act is signed, it would not have a significant impact on the jail’s current population.

“We have to pursue every single thing that we have available to us,” said Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, calling out “state-sanctioned murder.”

While city officials highlighted boosting staffing numbers and punishing staff who violate sick leave rules, criminal justice advocates have pushed for decarceration. A coalition of two dozen groups including the Brooklyn Defender Services, the Urban Justice Center and the Legal Aid Society called for city and state leaders, judges and prosecutors to reduce the jail’s population immediately. 

After hours of city council members hearing testimony from Schiraldi, state lawmakers expressed frustration at the scope of solutions being proposed. Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, who also described seeing maggots during her visit, called for an end to cash bail.

“We have to pursue every single thing that we have available to us,” said Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, calling out lawmakers for permitting “state-sanctioned murder.”

“At its core, this crisis is about decarceration. We cannot hire our way out of this crisis.”

Correction, September 16: This article has been updated to clarifying the timing of Mayor de Blasio’s press conference.

Photograph of Rikers Island by Tim Rodenburg via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post De Blasio Rejects Decarceration as Human Rights Catastrophe Consumes Rikers appeared first on Filter.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) told Filter that the man receiving methadone, referred to as P.G. in court documents, was arrested shortly before courts closed for Labor Day weekend. In April, Filter reported that the NYCLU and American Civil Liberties Union had begun litigation on P.G.’s behalf in anticipation of his arrest. (P.G’s probation officer had warned him in December 2020 that he could face rearrest due to an alleged probation violation).

The civil rights groups sued the Jefferson County sheriff and undersheriff, as well as the jail administrator, alleging that the county was violating the New York State Civil Rights Law, the US Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act by preventing people from accessing MOUD while detained.

On September 7, District Judge David M. Hurd granted an emergency order for the duration of P.G.’s time at Jefferson County Jail. P.G. had been arrested for the alleged probation violation a few days prior.

Hurd also wrote that the lawsuit on P.G.’s behalf is likely to succeed—that Jefferson County Jail’s denial of methadone access violates both the Americans with Disabilities Act and 14th Amendment. Such a ruling would also be a first in the Second Circuit.

“Upon review, P.G. has made a ‘clear’ showing that he could suffer irreparable harm if his treatment were interrupted,” Hurd wrote. “The uncontested evidence established that withdrawal from methadone treatment is excruciatingly painful, will cause a number of severe physical and mental symptoms, and will place plaintiff at a significantly heightened risk of relapse and death.”

The day after P.G.’s arrest, he was only taken to his methadone clinic after it had already closed for the day. 

Jefferson County maintains that it has no official ban on methadone. “The jail is never going to deny appropriate medical treatments to an inmate,” Jefferson County Sheriff Colleen O’Neill told WWNY-TV after P.G.’s arrest.

Yet, as Hurd wrote in his September 7 ruling, “the actual evidence in the record … establishes that the County does not provide methadone to non-pregnant people.”

In a preliminary court hearing on July 8, an attorney for the county stated that if P.G. entered the jail, the county would offer daily transportation to the Watertown-based Credo Community Center, where P.G. was receiving methadone prior to his arrest.

Credo had offered to provide him with a take-home dose for Sundays, when the center is closed. Jefferson County opposed this arrangement, and objected to staff providing P.G. with methadone to take while he was inside the jail.

Caryn White, the director of Credo’s outpatient services, said in a declaration to the court that jail staff had previously administered methadone to pregnant prisoners from inside the facility. The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to Filter’s request for comment. It is not clear how pregnant prisoners received their methadone on Sundays and holidays. 

On September 4, the day after P.G. was arrested, he was only taken to Credo after the facility had already closed for the day. 

“I was able to reach out to contacts there and essentially ask them to stay open just for P.G., but that’s obviously not a sustainable solution,” NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney Antony Gemmel told Filter. “And potentially had it not been for that lucky turn of events, P.G. would have begun withdrawing from methadone that day.”

Gemmell said he hoped Hurd’s ruling would force jails around the state to ensure they’re facilitating MOUD access. 

“County jails around the state should be taking a good hard look at this preliminary injunction decision,” Gemmell continued, “and deciding whether they think it is worth being taken to federal court just to continue someone’s treatment when the Constitution already requires it.”

Both chambers of the New York legislature have passed a bill that would require the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and Commission of Corrections to create an MOUD program “for state correctional facilities and local jails.” 

The bill has not yet been sent to Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk, but is expected to arrive soon. “We’re reviewing the legislation and don’t have further comment at this time,” Hochul’s office told Filter.

Photograph of lock box containing methadone bottles by Helen Redmond

The post Judge Rules in Favor of New York Prisoner Suing for Methadone Access appeared first on Filter.

“I don’t have a clue as to what else I can do next to see if I’m filed and approved to get the EIP checks,” Scebbi told Filter via JPay, an electronic messaging system used in incarceration facilities.

After the passage of the third stimulus bill, some Republicans decried the idea of incarcerated people would receive checks, even though the first two stimulus plans also included payments for prisoners. Despite the change in presidency, the IRS commissioner has not changed. For incarcerated people and their families, the process of stimulus payments remains a byzantine affair. (The White House did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment.)

Across the country, incarcerated people and their loved ones have been left wondering about the status of their stimulus payments. After initially distributing 950,000 stimulus checks to incarcerated people in spring of 2020, the IRS then ordered those who received those funds to return them, prompting a class-action lawsuit.

In September, a district judge ordered the IRS to send funds to incarcerated people and tax forms to prisons. But an arbitrary deadline imposed by the agency left activists little time to inform prisoners that they were eligible.

As activists flooded prisons with 1040 tax forms, needed by many to file for their stimulus check, the prisons rejected the paperwork. Though the IRS also sent carceral facilities stacks of 1040s, as required by the judge, incarcerated people didn’t always have enough time to fill them out and postmark the forms by the November 4 deadline. Some managed to meet the deadline only to have the IRS fail to process their payments anyway.

“I think a lot of them assume there was identity theft because they never heard anything from the IRS.”

“There is no verified public number” of how many incarcerated people haven’t even received their first stimulus checks, despite filing necessary paperwork, Kelly Dermody, a partner at Lieff Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, the law firm that brought the class-action suit, told Filter. Dermody said a Congressional office looking into the issue told her that the IRS hadn’t processed 70,000 claims submitted by incarcerated people to receive the first stimulus check.

“Many never got their first and second [stimulus] so they have to file a form to track down their check or many just want to file an identity theft form,” Margaret Breslau, co-founder of the Virginia Prison Justice Network, told Filter. “I think a lot of them assume there was identity theft because they never heard anything from the IRS.”

Breslau and activists from other states said that prisoners have received letters instructing them to call a central IRS line and verify their identity. Hefty fees and limited phone time prohibit prisoners from actually reaching a representative.

“There may not always be perfect solutions available. We’re trying our best to offer a range of solutions,” an IRS spokesperson told Filter, adding that the agency is conducting outreach to ensure that eligible people receive their checks. “If there are gaps, we need to figure out a way to address those.”

Prisoners who did receive the payments often discovered that their first stimulus check had been heavily garnished, as the quickly drafted CARES Act did not prevent states from swiping hefty portions of the money.

People who didn’t receive either of the first two stimulus checks were instructed to request the payments on their 2020 tax returns. Unlike after the class-action suit, however, the IRS was not required to send tax forms to prisons. Activists had to begin outreach efforts once again. 

“Family members are still making the hard decision about whether to take funeral costs or have loved ones buried in the prison cemetery.”

Azzurra Crispino, the co-founder of Prison Abolition Prisoner Support, tried sending her incarcerated husband 100 tax forms through the IRS website. Instead of the forms, the agency sent a postcard stating the IRS would not fill document requests from correctional facilities. 

“In 2012 the IRS changed the practice of filing tax product orders for inmates of correctional facilities,” an IRS spokesperson told Filter. “Due to an increase in orders that appear to be frivolous requests and the increase in these orders being returned from prison facilities because they are deemed contraband, the National Distribution Center (NDC) will no longer fill orders they can identify as coming from an inmate.”

The spokesperson said that prison resource officers or prison officials could receive the forms, or that incarcerated people could find the forms in facility libraries—recommendations that are not always practical due to pandemic lockdowns.

Crispino said that the IRS sent 100 tax forms to one Ohio facility, but the prisoner who received them was written up for contraband and the forms were destroyed. (The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction did not immediately comment when asked about policies regarding blank tax forms.)

As prisoners and their loved ones on the outside try to reach the IRS, activists said their expenses have increased during the pandemic.

“People are still dying. Family members are still making the hard decision about whether to take funeral costs or have them be buried by the prison in the prison cemetery,” Crispino told Filter.

“My husband is continuing to say that the food he’s getting isn’t sufficient, so I’m continuing to send him more money in commissary and more food packages. Our phone bills continue to be through the roof.”

Photograph via Internal Revenue Service

The post A Year Into COVID, Prisoners Still in the Dark About Stimulus Checks appeared first on Filter.

The lawsuit accuses the facility and the county sheriff of violating the New York State Civil Rights Law, US Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to allow incarcerated people with OUD access to prescribed methadone. The suit, filed on behalf of a 35-year-old man identified only by the initials P.G., asks the county to rescind its ban on methadone treatment and seeks emergency relief if the county refuses to do so.

“Under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, there’s a right for people in pre-conviction custody to receive adequate medical care,” NYCLU senior staff attorney Antony Gemmell told Filter. “And so if the government essentially limits someone’s freedom to attain their own medical care by taking them into custody, it has an obligation to provide necessary medical care itself.”

“The argument is essentially opioid use disorder is a serious medical need and by denying the only effective treatment for it, the county is acting recklessly,” he continued, comparing denying methadone to someone diagnosed with OUD to denying someone with diabetes access to insulin.

The suit, first reported by Filter, calls the denial of methadone an “arbitrary and discriminatory denial of medically necessary treatment” and accuses the jail of “trafficking” in stigma against medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD). It says the jail only provides methadone to pregnant people. 

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, which has previously offered a different MOUD—naltrexone—did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment. P.G. said that MOUD other than methadone have not proved effective for him.

“Methadone has changed my life. For the first time in years, I have hope for the future, but all of that could be lost if my medication is interrupted.” 

“I have been fighting to overcome my opioid addiction for over a decade, and I have tried so many different treatments and programs along the way. Nothing was effective until I was prescribed methadone,” P.G. told Filter. “Receiving methadone treatment has changed my life. I’m drug-free, I have a stable job and I just purchased a home. For the first time in years, I have hope for the future, but all of that could be lost if my medication is interrupted.” 

An extensive body of research has proved the medical benefits of MOUD in carceral settings. One study found that increasing access to the three MOUD currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration—methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone—could reduce post-release deaths by 31.6 percent. Another found that people who received methadone while incarcerated were more than twice as likely as those who experienced forced withdrawal to continue methadone treatment a month after release. Discontinuing methadone increases the risk of fatal overdose.

In addition to the increased risk of relapse and overdose, people who are abruptly cut off methadone can experience a range of withdrawal symptoms, including vomiting, nausea and diarrhea.

“Withdrawal for me was being put in a cell by myself for seven days [to] get over the shit on my own,” Asia Betancourt, a leader of activist group VOCAL-NY’s User’s Union, who experienced forced withdrawal from heroin while she was incarcerated decades ago, told Filter. “They left me not a bath, not a shower. Nothing. It’s being treated like an animal. It’s inhumane … We want people to get the treatment they need when they need it at their most vulnerable time. And behind the wall in prison is the place where it needs to start.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said more than 81,000 people died of overdose between June 2019 to May 2020—a record number that reflects neither the full death count from that year nor the full effects of the pandemic that had only just begun.

On April 1, the president’s Office of National Drug Control Policy vowed to provide better care for people with substance use disorders. A statement outlining drug policy priorities for his first year in office said the Biden administration would “remove unnecessary barriers to prescribing buprenorphine and identify opportunities to expand low-barrier treatment services” and “expand access to evidence-based treatment for incarcerated individuals.”

“A positive ruling on this would send a message to other jails and prisons that don’t provide this treatment that there’s an obligation to do so.”

In New York, like many other states, available treatments lag behind long-established science. Rikers Island Correctional Facility has offered MOUD since 1987, and researchers have found the program reduces recidivism rates and disease transmission while offering savings on health care. But the practice isn’t extended across the state.

As of August 2019, jails in only 10 of the state’s 62 counties offered methadone (another 13 offered buprenorphine, while 34 offered naltrexone). Only 10 of the 52 facilities run by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision offer MOUD, according to the agency.

The ACLU has won similar cases in suits in Massachusetts, Washington and Maine, forcing carceral facilities to provide access to MOUD. A ruling on the merits of the NYCLU’s case brought Monday would be the first such ruling in New York.

“We expect that a positive ruling on this would send a message to other jails and prisons that don’t provide this treatment that there’s an obligation to do so,” Gemmell said. 

Advocates have unsuccessfully pressured Governor Andrew Cuomo for years to include funding for MOUD treatments in prisons and jails. Last year, Cuomo vetoed a bill that would have removed restrictions preventing Medicaid recipients from receiving MOUD, though he signed a bill eliminating that barrier for people who had private insurance—effectively creating a two-tiered health care system at the expense of lower-income New Yorkers.

A report from nonprofit RTI International found that the removal of prior authorization to receive treatments in New York, as the vetoed legislation proposed, could have saved almost 600 lives and almost $52 million each year. Cuomo defended his decision by stating that the legislation would offer “unfair competitive advantage to one pharmaceutical manufacturer in particular.”

“The governor has repeatedly sent the message that saving people’s lives costs too much money,” Biz Berthy, a drug policy organizer at VOCAL-NY, told Filter. But with Cuomo weakened by a trio of scandals—the sexual harassment and misconduct allegations; his office burying the true toll of COVID in nursing homes; and the reports that he secured preferential COVID testing for family members—activists see a potential opening for finally securing funding for MOUD. 

“If the legislature does not make sure that MOUD in prisons and jails is fully funded this year, that is just a testament to the complete lack of political will.”

“It’s also a matter of seeing if the legislature is finally going to stand up against Governor Cuomo for their people that are struggling inside prisons and jails, being forced into torturous withdrawal,” Berthy said, noting that $20 million for MOUD funds amounts to a small proportion of the governor’s $192.9 million budget proposal.

“If the legislature does not stand up and make sure that [MOUD] in prisons and jails is fully funded this year, that is just a testament to the complete lack of political will.”

The Senate budget proposed last month included the removal of prior authorization for MOUD and would require prisons and jails across the state to offer it to incarcerated people. The Assembly budget also contained funding for MOUD in correctional facilities.

But on April 2, VOCAL-NY stated that Cuomo had removed or altered a series of budget proposals so much that they were “meaningless.” The $20 million to provide MOUD to people in prisons and jails, and the removal of prior authorization for people on Medicaid—provisions that Berthy called “the only strong overdose prevention bills in the entire budget”—were among those the governor had reportedly stricken or reconfigured.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office told Filter that the office does not comment on pending legislation or budget negotiations. Neither Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie or Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins responded to requests for comment.

“They’ve been [hemming] and hawing and lying to us for years,” Betancourt said. “How much worse does it have to get before we decide to do the right thing?”

Photograph via New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

The post Exclusive: ACLU Sues NY County Over Methadone Access in Prison appeared first on Filter.

The bill, which Mayor Bill de Blasio said he intends to sign, will make it easier for New Yorkers to sue police officers.

“This legislation is simple—it creates a set of civil rights here in New York City, mirroring those conferred by the 4th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution, so that people in New York City can hold officers accountable if those officers violate their civil rights,” Council Member Stephen Levin, who sponsored the bill, said in a press release. “It eliminates the shield of qualified immunity to allow victims the opportunity to seek justice.”

Yet the legislation passed March 25, which City Council Speaker Corey Johnson touted on MSNBC, calling qualified immunity a “broken legal doctrine,” still leaves the taxpayers covering the cost of damages awarded due to officer misconduct. 

“We took away individual financial penalties for officers because I thought that was a huge mistake,” de Blasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on March 26. “In a time when we are trying to get more and more working people and people of color and immigrants to join the NYPD and diversify the NYPD, I truly believed if there was going to be a message to people that they might be personally liable, that, you know, for potentially tens of thousands of dollars, that that was going to tell a whole lot of people this was not a job they could pursue.”

“You can’t really say that you’ve ended qualified immunity for all police misconduct in NYC if you’re not talking about the ways that police misconduct manifests.”

The legislation also fails to prevent qualified immunity claims from being used in federal and state lawsuits.

The bill “doesn’t address the core issue of qualified immunity as an actual doctrine,” NYCLU Senior Policy Counsel Michael Sisitzky told Filter. “It covers any claims under the Fourth Amendment and excessive force, and that’s also not the full universe of police misconduct. So you can’t really say that you’ve ended qualified immunity for all police misconduct in NYC if you’re not talking about the ways that police misconduct manifests in violations of protest rights, of recording police activity, of racial profiling.”

The council approved a series of bills and resolutions in addition to the qualified immunity legislation. One bill allows the Civilian Complaint Review Board to investigate officers accused of bias or racial profiling, while another will require the NYPD to publish quarterly reports on traffic stops and break down data by precinct, race and ethnicity. 

Sisitzky described the City Council measures as a “mixed bag”—a much better review than he and other advocates gave the separate de Blasio reform plan that was advanced at the same time as those measures. 

De Blasio’s Inadequate Reforms

As historic protests against police brutality swept across New York last year, Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered every locality in the state to adopt a reform plan by April 1, 2021, or else lose state funding. 

De Blasio’s plan—boilerplate reforms with no real intention of change—was approved by the City Council on March 25, the same day as the package that included the qualified immunity bill.

“These reforms will confront centuries of overpolicing in communities of color and strengthen the bonds between police and community,” de Blasio stated in a press release after the Council voted on the measures. In an email statement to Filter, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the reforms “will deepen accountability and restore trust between the police and the communities they serve. We’re proud of the lasting change it will create it in our city and we look forward to doing more.”

Activist groups, however, assailed the plan as an inadequate approach to reconstructing the NYPD from a mayor who has faced extensive criticism for his police department’s misconduct, despite campaigning on a promise of reform. In a damning lawsuit filed in January, New York Attorney General Letitia James accused the NYPD of violating New Yorkers’ civil rights during protests against police brutality and called for federal oversight.

“Mayor de Blasio had a genuine opportunity to implement urgently needed policing reforms,” said Tina Luongo, Attorney-in-Charge of the Criminal Defense Practice at The Legal Aid Society, in a press release. “He failed to do that and instead produced a plan that at best glosses over the deeply rooted systemic problems within the NYPD that plague the New Yorkers we serve.”

“They didn’t bring in advocates early on in the process. They really let the NYPD take the lead.”

The mayor’s plan focuses on five main points: the criminalization of poverty; recognizing the history and continuation of “modern-day racialized policing;” transparency and accountability; community representation and partnership; and creating a “diverse, resilient and supportive NYPD.” His plan also contains language on expanding harm reduction programs, conducting “a critical examination” of policies that perpetuate racism and breaking the school-to-prison pipeline.

Advocacy groups and progressive lawmakers focused on reducing the budget and size of the NYPD said the mayor’s proposal offers little to actually change the day-to-day operation of the nation’s largest police force. On March 25, more than 50 advocacy groups sent a letter to Speaker Johnson calling the mayor’s proposal “shameful” and arguing that it would not hold the NYPD accountable or decrease police violence. 

They also decried the process the mayor used to develop his plan.

“They were supposed to engage communities … in developing those recommendations and they did so through, pretty much, an NYPD-facilitated process. They didn’t bring in advocates early on in the process. They really let the NYPD take the lead,” Sisitzky said. “So we ended up with a plan that had things like committing to more community and neighborhood policing, more training for officers and a reliance on things like their recently developed disciplinary matrix for holding themselves accountable.”

De Blasio only offered the first part of his draft proposal on March 5, allowing less than a month to incorporate changes from lawmakers and the public. The final draft was released just a day before the legislature voted on the reform package.

“It is also egregious that the final version of the Mayor’s plan and the Council resolution supporting it were not finalized and made available for meaningful consideration and debate until yesterday,” Council Member Brad Lander, who voted against what he called the mayor’s “sham reform plan,” wrote in a press release. “It was not a thorough, serious or inclusive process, and it is not a thorough, serious or inclusive plan.”

Advocacy groups are now looking to the looming budget battle. 

“The real fight is going to be this summer,” Sisitzky said.

Photograph of NYPD via Flickr

The post NYC to End Qualified Immunity for Police Officers—To an Extent appeared first on Filter.