After the City Council’s historic vote Wednesday to ban most uses of solitary confinement in city jails, Mayor Eric Adams — who opposed the measure over safety concerns for correction guards and other detainees — is now weighing a potential veto once the bill reaches his desk.
The legislation, Int. 549, is designed to mostly end a practice, where a detainee is held alone in a cell for most of the day, that is widely seen as inhumane — the United Nations has even called it a form of torture. The bill mandates that all detainees in city jails must have 14 hours of out-of-cell time a day and that only those who engage in violent incidents can be separated from the general population.
