Mayor Eric Adams has repealed parts of New York City’s solitary confinement law. This means.

NEW YORK – Solitary confinement in New York City prisons was set to officially end on Sunday, but Mayor Eric Adams issued an emergency order repealing parts of the law.

The City Council passed this law with an overwhelming majority To ban solitary confinement. The mayor vetoed and the council overrode himBut now Adams is using his executive power, declaring a state of emergency and issuing an executive order designed to prevent it from coming into effect, at least for the time being.

What is Municipal Law 42?

Law 42 is designed to make the city’s prisons safer. This year At least four prisoners have died in custody and correctional officers have long complained about unsafe conditions.

Part of the law limits the duration of isolation of prisoners to four hours per day.

The law also requires officers to check on inmates every 15 minutes and write a detailed report explaining why isolation was necessary.

In addition to the increased workload, Adams claims that the law does not allow adult inmates to be detained during transport to and from prison.

Ombudsman Williams disagrees with Mayor Adams

Citizen advocate Jumaane Williams, who introduced the bill, said the mayor needs to read it again.

“It doesn’t say you can’t use restraints to transport people to Rikers. That’s just a fabrication, but the rule of this administration is to make things up when they’ve lost an argument and use abusive tactics,” Williams said.

“We just want to have time to analyze the law and decide how best to implement it without harming inmates and correctional officers,” Adams said.

A city council spokesman also sharply criticized the mayor’s move, saying, among other things: “The reality is that the law already contains broad safety exceptions that make this ’emergency order’ unnecessary and provide another example of Mayor Adams using executive orders without justification.”

Adams said the order is temporary and he expects the review to be completed by October. Critics say he has had months to review the order since it was only issued in January.