The New York State Senate

 
JUSTIFICATION:

When an inmate with serious mental illness moves through the correction-
al system, he or she sees different mental health providers in different
facilities and may have differing severity of symptoms at different
times. An inmate who has a mental disorder that qualifies him or her to
be excluded from solitary confinement housing units under State law may
lose the qualifying diagnosis because of a change in treatment provid-
ers, a beneficial response to drugs or therapy, or a period of relative
mental stability or lack of symptoms. Additionally, when a person with a
long-standing diagnosis in the community first comes into prison,
prison-based treatment providers may not take his or her previous mental
health records into account or agree with the community provider's diag-
nosis, and may misdiagnose the inmate or fail to recognize mental health
symptoms that are cyclical in nature.

Inmates who have Axis I mental health disorders like schizophrenia and
bipolar disorder or other severe mental illnesses are prone to relapse,
vulnerable to stress and are very likely to find themselves in violation
of DOCCS rules concerning inmate behavior during periods of active
mental illness. If such inmates are not protected by law, they will
often wind up in disciplinary confinement in special housing units where
they are locked in their cells 23 hours a day, cannot phone home, have
limited property, cannot attend programs or religious services, and are
generally locked down without stabilizing support systems.

Being labeled as "seriously mentally ill" in the prison system means
that an inmate cannot be placed in a solitary confinement unit for more
than thirty days but must be placed instead in a residential mental
health treatment unit when he or she misbehaves and incurs a discipli-
nary sanction.

The purpose of this bills to ensure that inmates with qualifying diag-
noses, whether made by 0M11 prison-based staff or community mental
health providers, will not be downgraded from the "seriously mentally
ill" status that guarantees they will serve any disciplinary sanctions
in a treatment unit rather in than solitary confinement.  The bill
provides that such inmates will go to treatment units even if they have
been removed from the OMB caseload or had their diagnosis changed by a
later psychiatrist to a non-qualifying diagnosis. It does not affect the
ability of the treatment provider to change the diagnosis, but simply
protects such vulnerable inmates from being placed in long term solitary
confinement. People with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder do not get
cured, but with treatment, care and flexibility they can often manage
their mental illnesses. Such management is not possible in solitary
confinement.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

A9421-A reported to ways and means in 2016.

A4037 reported to corrections in 2018.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

Unknown but appropriate mental health treatment should save the state
money in the long run. Additionally, there are currently vacant beds in
the treatment units, and with the settlement in Peoples v.  Fischer,
fewer inmates should have long SHU sanctions, freeing up more treatment
beds.

 
LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None, the SHU mental health law does not apply to jails.