[NYAPRS Enews] Newsday, Journal News, Star-Gazette Editorials Urge SHU Bill Passage, MHW Coverage

Mon Jun 18 06:43:55 EDT 2007

NYAPRS Note: As we begin the last week of the 2007 NYS legislative
session, 3 more newspapers join the New York Times, Albany Times Union,
Auburn Citizen, Troy Record, Syracuse Post-Standard, Tonawanda News and
Poughkeepsie Journal in urging Governor Spitzer to negotiate an
agreement on legislation banning the use of solitary confinement for
prisoners with severe psychiatric disabilities. 

Later today, a Long Island rally will join a similar one held outside
the Governor's NYC offices last Thursday and several held in Albany
earlier this year. Look for action in both houses of the legislature
later today or tomorrow on revised legislation with language aimed at
addressing a number of the Governor's concerns. 

Advocates across New York and the nation are looking for leadership by
Governor Spitzer that will complete his prison mental health reform
package and make New York a true national leader. Many other states have
already 'banned the box' for prisoners with severe psychiatric
disabilities. The state's Office of Mental Health is able to manage the
confinement of extremely disruptive and distressed prisoners at its two
prison hospitals, Central New York and Mid Hudson Psychiatric Centers,
without the use of inhumane solitary confinements. Why can't the
Department of Corrections? With $60 million already approved in this
year's budget and savings offsets predicted for improved handling of
these prisoners, can it really be about the money? 

We look to the Governor for leadership this week! 

Time for Albany to Close 'The Box'

Newsday Editorial   June 17, 2007

Before he became Gov. Steamroller, Eliot Spitzer was a prosecutor and a
Wall Street-busting attorney general. So his bent is to go after bad
guys, not to worry about their treatment. Now, as governor, he has
donned the beady-eyed attitude of the bean-counter, looking for ways to
save money.

In light of those two mind-sets, he could be mightily tempted to veto a
bill that is long overdue: banning solitary confinement for mentally ill
inmates. In the shorthand of Albany, where the end-of-session rush is so
fast that every issue has to have a quick nickname, it's called the SHU
(pronounced "shoe") bill.

SHU stands for special housing unit, a euphemism for solitary
confinement in "the box." That's the last place where mentally ill
inmates should be confined, given that they are about three times as
likely to commit suicide as the general prison population, and their
disability makes the box a cruelly terrifying experience. Our state's
prisons hold an estimated 8,000 mentally ill inmates, and too many end
up in the box.

Last year, the legislature passed a bill that would have discarded this
barbaric approach, putting these inmates instead into secure residential
treatment. But Gov. George Pataki vetoed it, and the legislators didn't
try to override him.

This year, Spitzer did settle a lawsuit on the issue by Disability
Advocates Inc. For that, he deserves commendation. But the settlement
doesn't go far enough. While it would offer more in the way of diagnosis
and treatment, and it cuts time in the box from 23 hours to 21, that's
21 hours too many. As a former state prison commissioner said: "You go
to prison as punishment, not for punishment."

Spitzer's concern is that signing the bill would subject the state to
costs of up to $500 million. Sen. Michael Nozzolio (R-Seneca Falls), the
sponsor of the bill, which unanimously passed the Senate, doesn't buy
that number. Nor do we.

In the Assembly, where the bill is sponsored by Jeffrion Aubry (D-East
Elmhurst), it is expected to pass easily.

Then it's up to Spitzer. If nothing else, he should sign it by way of
contrition for the state's deinstitutionalizing patients out of state
hospitals, without creating enough community care for them - a major
reason the prisons have so many mentally ill inmates. That policy makes
this bill an overdue debt. 

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpduo175258083jun17,0,963684,prin
t.story?coll=ny-editorials-headlines  

-----------------

Legislature Has Full Plate In Final Week 

Locally Significant Bills Are On Albany's Agenda. 

Elmira Star Gazette Editorial   June 17, 2007

As the New York Legislature crams for the close of its 2007 session this
week, there are a few pieces of pending legislation worth watching.
Among those:

*A proposal to house mentally disturbed prison inmates in separate
quarters where they can be treated and not just confined. This bill has
passed the Senate and awaits action in the Assembly. The measure
actually was approved last year by the Assembly and Senate, with varying
degrees of support or caution among corrections officers, but then-Gov.
George Pataki vetoed the bill. If approved and signed by Gov. Eliot
Spitzer, the law would give mentally disturbed inmates the help they
need, while relieving COs of the risks of dealing with hard-to-control
inmates who maim themselves or throw urine or feces at the officers. The
new budget contains $63 million for a new facility and to provide mental
health staff and additional corrections staffing.

We supported this measure last year, especially because it affects
officers and inmates at the Elmira and Southport correctional
facilities. Nothing has changed since then to weaken that support. This
bill should be passed and then signed by the governor.

----------------

A Happening Albany

Journal News Editorial   June 18, 2007

....None of this is to say that all is right in Albany. There have been
much grandstanding and petty infighting..... There remains to watch:

- Prison care. Also on the waiting list is legislation to stop the
inhumane practice of placing seriously mentally ill prisoners in
solitary confinement while requiring better medical treatment for all
such prisoners. We know that prisoners are not high on lawmakers' list
of priorities, but such care matters; at the very least, most prisoners
are eventually released.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070618/OPINIO
N/706180318/1015/OPINION01 

---------------

N.Y. Advocates Urge Governor to Support SHU Legislation

Mental Health Weekly June 18, 2007

As New York legislators approach an end to their current session this
week, mental health and disability rights advocates are pressing hard
for Gov. Eliot Spitzer to support legislation to prevent people with
psychiatric disabilities from being placed in solitary confinement in
New York State prisons.

Advocates said they were encouraged by the recent settlement to increase
treatment and housing programs for prisoners with mental illness in New
York State prisons, but said much more is needed. The settlement
followed a 2002 lawsuit, Disability Advocates, Inc. v. New York State
Office of Mental Health and Department of Correctional Services, filed
in federal court in New York City.

The settlement in April requires that prisoners with serious illness
confined in a Special Housing Unit (SHU) will receive a minimum of two
hours

per day of out-of-cell treatment. It also provides improved suicide
prevention assessments, which are now required upon admission to SHU.

Meanwhile, both the state Assembly and the Senate have passed
legislation (S.333/A.4870) to ban the use of solitary confinement for
state prisoners with psychiatric disabilities. The bills also provide
for residential mental health treatment programs and rehabilitation for
inmates. 

Additionally, the legislation establishes oversight responsibilities of
the New York State commission on quality care and advocacy for people
with disabilities.

Although the legislation has passed both the state Assembly and
overwhelmingly in the Senate, the legislation has been sent back for
revisions to clarify language regarding the scope and cost of
initiatives outlined in the legislation, said Harvey Rosenthal,
executive director of the New York Association of Psychiatric
Rehabilitation (NYAPRS).

"We expect the amended bills to pass," Rosenthal told MHW. Rosenthal
said he is also encouraged by the editorials by New York media on behalf
of the legislation. The Times Union in its editorial called for a stop
to this 'inhumane practice,' he said. Advocates had also planned a rally
last week in New York City outside the governor's office.

Spitzer has added about $60 million in its mental health and corrections
budget, said Rosenthal. "We appreciate the steps the governor has taken
so far," Rosenthal said. "However, we still have to go one more very
important mile," to ban the 'SHU box,' as it otherwise referred to, he
noted.

The settlement does provide some advances in the way prisoners are
treated, but it is not enough, said Rosenthal. It reduces the number of
hours prisoner serve in solitary confinement, from 23 hours to 21, he
said. "It still doesn't end the practice we are dedicated to end," said
Rosenthal.

If the SHU bill is passed, New York will join many other states,
including California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas in
keeping people with serious mental illness out of solitary confinement.

Pressuring the Governor

"We've been doing everything in our power to get legislators to pass a
strong bill and put pressure on the governor to sign it into law," Glenn
Liebman, chief executive of the Mental Health Association in New York
State, told MHW. "We think the settlement is a good first step, but it
does not address oversight or training issues," he noted. "We wouldn't
be satisfied until SHU was completely eliminated for people with
psychiatric disabilities."

According to the New York State Office of Mental Health, people with
mental illness account for 12 percent of the overall state correctional
facility population, said Liebman. Not all of them are in SHU, however,
he noted.

"We need to take much more comprehensive approach to this issue," said
Liebman. The legislation calls for more training of correctional staff,
he said. "The key component is to reform the system," Liebman said.
"We're looking for a comprehensive response and this legislation
provides that response to this issue."

"Solitary confinement for persons with SMI is tantamount to torture,"
Jeff Keller, deputy director of the National Alliance on Mental
Illness-New York State (NAMI-NYS), told MHW. "This is something you
can't do halfway," he noted. "While the recent settlement allows for a
lot more accountability in how people are treated, they [prisoners with
mental illness] are still being tortured.  We do not support torture
with counseling."

"Going forward, we support legislation than bans people with mental
illness from being put in solitary confinement," he said. 

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