A solitary confinement cell | Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo Ponte says solitary confinement of young inmates now officially banned at Rikers

In early 2015, New York City said it wanted to end the use of punitive segregation for all inmates 21 years old and younger at Rikers Island and elsewhere.

On Wednesday evening, Department of Correction commissioner Joseph Ponte said the city will officially achieve that goal on Oct. 11, nearly two years after headlines around the city heralded the coming change in department policy.


“This is an unprecedented milestone in New York State correctional history and even more importantly across the nation. To date, no other State has accomplished comparable punitive segregation reforms,” Ponte said in the letter addressed to the Board of Correction.

The city’s plan to move young inmates from solitary confinement was part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s push to reform the city jail even as the department struggled to meet its self-imposed deadlines to move them.

Plans to move young inmates out of punitive segregation — the correction community’s preferred term for solitary confinement — have been discussed for years. The first group to be exempted were 16- and 17-year-olds. The department agreed to find new ways of dealing with these inmates shortly after an August 2014 investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office found a “culture of violence” at Rikers that specifically targeted teenagers at the island jail.

New York is one of only two states, along with North Carolina, that continues to prosecute teenagers as adults.

In early 2015 , the department and board agreed to a plan that would add older inmates who had yet to turn 22 to that category. But this population in particular has proved problematic for the department. Requests for variances to the board’s rules have become common at monthly board meetings, creating tension between certain board members and the department over its stated commitment to keeping the youth out of solitary confinement.

In his letter, Ponte said the DOC has made “remarkable strides” in its “commitment to the elimination of punitive segregation for adolescents and young adults in our custody.”

To reach this point of total departure from punitive segregation for those under 21, Ponte asked, again, for a variance to the department’s rules regarding placing 18- to 21-year-olds in enhanced supervision housing (ESH) units.

ESH units are part of the DOC’s move to create a tiered system of increasingly more restrictive housing for inmates as a replacement for the one-size-fits-all punishment of solitary confinement. The older youths were specifically targeted for exclusion by the board from facing time in these restrictive enhanced supervision housing units.

In July, Ponte requested and received a variance to continue to place young adults in ESH units alongside older adults. On Wednesday, he again requested a variance that will allow this practice to continue as the department looks to create a young adult-specific ESH unit.

“This is necessary to end the practice of 23-hour lock down punitive segregation in a safe manner,” specialty ESH unit solely for young adults. Ponte said he hoped to work with the board to craft rules that would allow for such a unit to conform with its rules on restrictive housing for young adults.

“[W]e need the variance while we move towards fuller rule making related to these alternative housing options,” Ponte's letter said. “It is critical to understand the role of ESH in the advancement and evolution of the Young Adult plan as an additional housing model that will allow for initial placement and assessment of those involved in violent events.”

Some outside observers, including Glenn Martin of Justice Leadership USA, said Wednesday that they did not share Ponte’s sense of momentousness.

Martin, who spent a year incarcerated on Rikers and whose group is calling for the closing of the island jail, expressed doubt over the department’s statements regarding the end of punitive segregation for young inmates.

Recent reports have suggested old-style punitive segregation has continued at facilities throughout the jail complex, most recently at the West Facility . According to a source, at least one person under the age of 21 was discovered recently being held in solitary at West.

“I’m not convinced this is the end of the line,” Martin said, adding that he believed DOC officials and de Blasio would “continue to play hide-the-ball with the public with respect to reforms at Rikers.”

Martin called reforms like ending punitive segregation for young adults and teenagers “low-hanging fruit” that amounted to “lipstick on a pig.”

“I think that without a long-term vision for closing Rikers and creating a smaller, fairer, more humane jail system in New York, just means that the mayor’s rhetoric in no way lines up with the scope of the problem,” he said.