An official's revelation that a man was isolated in a cell at Rikers Island for more than 30 hours before his death earlier this month exposes a stark reality: Although corrections officials claim there is no solitary confinement at the city’s jail complex, the practice still exists by other names.

According to current and former correction officials, detainees, and defense lawyers, people continue to be held alone, behind bars and plexiglass, in cells and sometimes shower cages, for lengths of time that defy United Nations rules for the treatment of the incarcerated. 

The city had planned a more humane system of isolating, punishing, and rehabilitating detainees accused of infractions involving violence or contraband to go into effect. But that plan has repeatedly been delayed since last year due to what officials say is a dearth of correction officers to implement it. Now, in accordance with emergency executive orders issued by Mayor Eric Adams, it’s on hold indefinitely. 

 “Over and over again, this is how reform efforts get sabotaged in this agency,” said Kayla Simpson, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, which represents many pre-trial detainees at Rikers. 

Simpson spoke at a recent meeting of the city board of correction, which enacted the more humane rules on solitary confinement that jail officials say they can’t implement. “All of this is happening against the background of not only the persistently horrifying drumbeat of instability and death, but also of a city that has decided to use emergency executive authority so that it decides what rules it will follows and when, in defiance of oversight structures like this board,” she said.

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