New York City’s Department of Corrections is considering a controversial new program at Rikers Island that will segregate what it considers to be the jail’s most violent inmates.

The program has drawn criticism from advocates and mental health professionals who say the new unit is simply solitary confinement under a different name.

The city’s Board of Correction must approve the plan, known as Enhanced Security Housing, before it will be implemented.

“Violence in our jails is at an all-time high,” said Prison Commissioner Joseph Ponte at a hearing Friday. “The goal of ESH is to improve the safety and security in our jails. We aren’t looking to create a back-door punitive segregation unit.”

The new program will house 250 inmates who have stabbed, slashed, or assaulted other inmates. Prisoners who are sent to ESH will have a chance to appeal their placement, according to a DOC spokesman.

“The policy is too obtuse, casts too wide of a net, and essentially houses any alleged violent inmate with very little due process,” said Dr. Daniel Spelling, the former director of mental health at Rikers Island who testified against the implementation of ESH. “I have seen these human atrocities first-hand, and can assure you that this program will not address the intended mission to decrease violence. To the contrary, it will increase violence.”  

Inmates in ESH will be allowed out of their cells seven hours per day but advocates complain they won't be allowed to go to the jail's library, have family visits or attend religious services. Correction officials say that's not the case and while inmates won't be escorted to these places, the services will be provided to them within the new housing unit.