Class Action Claims NYC, Dept. of Correction Have Unconstitutionally Isolated Young Pretrial Detainees ‘Indefinitely’

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The City of New York and three Department of Correction officials face a proposed class action that alleges “substantial numbers” of pretrial detainees, particularly those around 19 or 20 years old, have unconstitutionally been kept in “stealth isolation confinement facilities” indefinitely without due process or a legitimate purpose for doing so.

The 24-page lawsuit alleges some individuals detained pretrial by the New York City Department of Correction have been placed in isolation facilities—namely a portion of the West Facility and the North Infirmary Command at Rikers Island and the 9 South facility at the Manhattan Detention Complex—indefinitely and “under extremely restrictive conditions, largely deprived of human contact,” without knowing when, if ever, they would be released to a less restrictive setting. 

Those placed in “indefinite isolation” before trial at one of the three city facilities without being given a hearing or other meaningful opportunity to challenge the “nature, conditions, or continuation of their isolation confinement” have had their constitutional due process rights violated, the lawsuit alleges. The suit’s three plaintiffs each allege they spent months on end in “indefinite isolation” when they were around the ages of 19 or 20 as a means of “punitive segregation” on the part of the defendants. 

“The tragedy of this case is that the due process protections that Defendants purposefully evaded were designed and enacted precisely because it is well established that young adults like [the plaintiffs] are particularly susceptible to serious and lasting harm when subjected to prolonged periods of isolation,” the complaint reads. 

The suit alleges New York and its Department of Correction knew it is “irresponsibly dangerous” and unlawful to subject young pretrial detainees to prolonged periods of isolation, or to subject anyone to prolonged periods of isolation without affording them daily medical and mental health services and frequent period placement reviews. Nevertheless, the defendants “punished Plaintiffs and deprived them of their liberty” while ignoring the rules governing prolonged isolated confinement, the case says. 

According to the lawsuit, the NYC Department of Correction is forbidden from imposing punitive segregation on inmates under 22 years old or on those with serious mental or physical disabilities or conditions. None of the plaintiffs received written notice, a hearing, an opportunity to defend themselves, an opportunity to establish facts concerning what an appropriate placement should be or a written statement by a fact-finder before they were placed in “extremely restrictive confinements,” the case claims. 

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