Mayor Adams issues emergency order killing parts of new law set to ban solitary confinement in city jails

Mayor Adams killed several components of a new law meant to ban solitary confinement in city jails in an emergency order Saturday, just one day before it was set to take effect, officials said.

Adams declared a state of emergency and suspended components of Local Law 42 which set a four-hour time limit on holding detainees in “de-escalation confinement” while they pose a danger to themselves or others, and limited the use of restraints on detainees while they are transported by bus or other vehicles.

The mayor’s tweaks would allow Department of Correction staff to release detainees from de-escalation confinement “as soon as practicable” once they have “sufficiently gained control and no longer pose a significant risk of imminent serious physical injury to themselves or others,” Adams wrote in the order. Limits on the use of restraints during detainee transport were also squashed.

Adams additionally suspended a section of the law that blocked DOC staff from placing detainees in restrictive housing for more than 60 days in any year-long period. Instead, Adams ordered that detainees’ placement in restrictive housing be reviewed every 15 days.

“It is of the utmost importance to protect the health and safety of all persons in the custody of the Department of Correction and of all officers and persons who work in the City of New York jails and who transport persons in custody to court and other facilities, and the public,” Adams wrote.

City council members did not immediately respond to inquiries about the mayor’s emergency order, but a council spokeswoman criticized the move.

“Each day Mayor Adams’ Administration shows how little respect it has for the laws and democracy, it sets more hypocritical double standards for complying with the law that leave New Yorkers worse off,” City Council spokesperson Shirley Limongi wrote in a statement. “In this case, our city and everyone in its dysfunctional and dangerous jail system, including staff, are left less safe. The reality is the law already included broad safety exemptions that make this ‘emergency order’ unnecessary and another example of Mayor Adams overusing executive orders without justification.”

The law, passed in December after a year of debate, was vetoed by Adams in January. The Council then immediately over-rode the veto. The city then sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain asking her to suspend elements of the law arguing the law makes the jails unsafe.

Swain is presiding over Nunez v. City of New York, the 2011 class action that led in 2015 to the appointment of a monitor to track violence and staff use of force in the jails. The monitor, Steve Martin, penned a letter in January with his own concerns about the solitary ban saying it would “exacerbate already dangerous conditions.”