On June 29, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced measures toward ending solitary confinement in New York City’s jails — forming a working group to recommend measures to the Board of Correction and immediately prohibiting solitary for people with asthma, epilepsy, heart conditions and other underlying medical conditions.
On June 8, 2021, the board approved new limits on the practice — but inmate advocates said the reforms fell short of ending what they decried as “torture.”
THE CITY has closely followed solitary confinement and its consequences, including an event that galvanized calls for reform: the June 7, 2019, death of Layleen Polanco in her Rikers Island cell after days of isolation.