CA News

The SHU has Finally Dropped

Spring 2008

The Fall/Winter Issue of CA Bulletin featured an update on proposed New York State legislation designed to protect inmates with mental illness. After years of public reporting and advocacy work on the part of the CA and others, the bill was signed into law on January 29.

The CA’s in-depth reporting on the issue—Lockdown New York (2003) and Mental Health in the House of Corrections (2004)—drew wide attention from policymakers, media, and the public, especially in exposing the large numbers of mentally ill prisoners inhumanely placed in harsh disciplinary confinement cell blocks known as Special Housing Units (SHU). Working with the Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement—a coalition of advocates and family members of prisoners—and key legislative allies, the CA led a years-long effort to secure protection and appropriate treatment for inmates with mental illness.

The new law includes numerous important advances that will govern how the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) and the Office of Mental Health (OMH) treat inmates with serious mental illness who would otherwise face disciplinary confinement. Among its provisions, the law diverts most prisoners with mental illness from SHU, restricts prisons from placing them on restricted diets, and establishes minimum standards for mental health assessment and treatment.

The CA’s work, however, is far from over. The Prison Visiting Project has launched an initiative to monitor the law, making certain that DOCS and OMH implement new policies with all due expediency, that guidelines preserve the therapeutic nature of new mental health services, and that both agencies limit any and all exceptions to new requirements. The CA is also working closely with the New York State Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities, who under the new law will assume a critical quality assurance role. As the only organization with unrestricted access to New York’s prisons, the CA will be crucial in ensuring that these new policies fulfill their potential to have positive, far-reaching impact on inmates with mental illness.