NYC NOW - July 30, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Figures from City Hall show the number of new migrants seeking shelter each week in New York City has dipped below one thousand. Plus, WNYC’s Michael Hill and Matt Katz discuss what comes next now that Mayor Eric Adams has declared a state of emergency in New York City jails. And finally, WNYC’s TIffany Hanssen talks with etiquette expert Nick Leighton about ways to prevent etiquette crimes in New York City.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. The number of new migrants seeking shelter each week in New York City has dipped below 1,000 for the first time since October 22. That's according to new figures from City Hall. Just over 900 migrants sought shelter in the first week of July. The count hovered between 820 and 840 over the following three weeks. The decline comes as illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border are falling as well. In June, the Biden administration instituted new restrictions on those applying for asylum.

But the data showed the flow of migrants into the city was slowing even before then. Earlier this year, the Adams administration sued out-of-state bus companies transporting migrants to New York from Texas. It also instituted new limits on how long migrants can stay in city shelters. Mayor Eric Adams is defending his move to declare a state of emergency in New York City jails, halting part of a solitary confinement law at Rikers Island. The ban on solitary confinement was supposed to start on Sunday, but Adams issued an unusual executive order over the weekend that allows city correction officers to continue using the restrictive measure.

Adams argues the law puts both correction officers and detainees in harm's way. We want to make sure the spirit of the law, does not get in way in the way of the implementation of the law so that we do not have prisoners, inmates, or correction officers that are harm in the process. For more, WMYC's Michael Hill talks with reporter Matt Katz to explain what happens next. Would you explain the debate over solitary confinement once more and how we got where we are now with practices described as solitary confinement still in place at Rikers? Yeah, this bill passed in city council.

that mandates that detainees get at least 14 hours of time outside their cells in shared spaces every day. And it also created this new disciplinary process for those who commit violence inside the jails, essentially reducing the amount of time that those people would be separated from the general population. The ban also put these limits on use of handcuffs and leg restraints. But correction officers hated it. They said it wouldn't allow them to keep people who commit violence away from victims. whether fellow detainees or officers. They said this bill banning this would prevent them from properly punishing detainees

who violate the rules. So Mayor Eric Adams heard these complaints, and he initially vetoed the bill banning solitary. Then counsel overrode his veto by huge margin, 42 to 9. Then Adams took the matter to federal court, but that didn't work. So we thought that the solitary confinement ban was just going to go into effect on Sunday. But on Saturday, we get word. that he's declaring a state of emergency in order to issue this emergency order to basically scale back a lot of this law. How much is he scaling back the new law? Does this mean solitary confinement just continues at Rikers?

This is where the wording gets really tricky. Solitary confinement is widely considered humanitarian violation. It's been found to have long-term psychological ramifications and lead to self-harm for those who are held in such conditions. even the correction commissioner calls it inhumane. But the question is, what is solitary confinement? And there's no agreed upon definition here. So this debate is a lot about how many hours alone in a cell or how many days in a row is appropriate for both de-escalating a situation and then also for punishing a detainee who violates rules.

So when both the correction commissioner and Eric Adams say solitary confinement doesn't exist at Rikers and hasn't since 2019, that's based on their definition of what it is. So yesterday the mayor said he's not actually reversing any ban on solitary confinement because you can't reverse something that doesn't exist. But advocates for detainees and detainees themselves, they say that's absurd because it just exists in different forms, like prolonged lockdowns for security reasons, where people are alone in their cells on hours on end with no access to recreation or phones. They say solitary confinement includes the practice at Rikers where people can sit outside of their cells, but they're chained by the wrist and ankles to a desk and don't necessarily have other people around to communicate with.

It's this sort of isolation that city council was trying to set the rules and limits around. Matt, where does the mayor's emergency order leave things? What's allowed and what's not? Yeah, there was a four-hour cap on confining someone involved in violence in order to de-escalate the situation. And that's been changed. So that allows someone to be separated for more hours in that. Adams also got rid of the part of the law, which limited when officers could use handcuffs and leg irons when transporting detainees to and from court. And Adams made Rikers restrictive housing units where people are punished. If they engage in violence, he made that more restrictive.

The council had said people in those units should get seven hours out of their cells to do activities every day. now that requirement has been suspended. The council had said no one should be held in restrictive housing for more than 60 days in a year and no more than 15 days in a row. That's been canceled by Adam. So when the mayor was asked about all of this, here's what he said. I am not going to put civilians, correction officers, and inmates in harm's way. I'm not going to do that.

If the court overruled me, then so be it. I did my best effort to protect those who are on. on Rikers Island. Matt, why did it come to this? Why couldn't the mayor and council agree on something to properly and humanely punish and separate detainees who are considered in need of punishment, in need of separation? Nothing, Michael, when it comes to Rikers, seems to come easy. There are so many entities involved here, and that's part of the issue. The big support that the mayor had in doing this actually came from the federal monitor who has overseen Rikers for about a decade. The monitor said that the city council law went too far and would expose correction officers and other detainees

to violence. And besides, the monitor wrote earlier this year that the department is too dysfunctional to even safely implement this ban on solitary confinement. So now a federal judge wants the monitor and correction officials and city council to get together and come up with some sort of compromise to present to the judge, but that's not due until October. So what happened in the meantime time. There could be lawsuits. We don't know yet. Defense attorneys are outraged. An activist group called Halt Salitary that's been pushing this for years had a rally yesterday. The city council passed a resolution to sue. We don't know if that's going to happen. Public advocate Jemani Williams, he's called us an abuse of power. He says the mayor just can't

ignore a law. He opposes. So we don't know. But meanwhile, a federal judge is concurrently considering a totally separate motion to have the correction department held in contempt and taken over by the federal government. So we're also keeping an eye on that and that decision could happen in the coming months. That's WMYC reporter Matt Katz talking with my colleague Michael Hill. After the break, we'll bring you a few etiquette rules to not be the worst in New York City. Please, stay close. Manners make the world go around and they can make it a little easier to live in a city with more than 8 million people. But what rules matter the most in a place like New York City?

WNYC's Tiffany Hansen. talks with Nick Layton, etiquette expert and co-host of the podcast, were you raised by wolves? The two discuss ways to prevent etiquette crimes in New York City. All right, so tell us about these etiquette crimes, as you like to call them. What are some of the biggies? So, respectful of people's time. So I think the number one is on the sidewalk, when we're walking slow and you're holding people up behind you, yeah, you're wasting my time. And when you're walking five by five on a sidewalk, you know, with all of your friends and I can't get around you.

Yeah, this is maddening. So that actually might be the number one New York City etiquette rule is you got to treat our sidewalks like a highway. If you would not do it on the highway, you should not be doing it on our sidewalks. Can we talk for a second about stopping at the top of the subway exit entrance? Uh-huh. We can definitely talk about it. Yeah, don't do it. Yeah, don't. Because you wouldn't do that on the highway. You wouldn't just like stop on an off ramp on the highway, would you? No, of course not. You wouldn't slam the brakes in the fast lane. So why are you stopping at the top of the subway stairs? Or why are you stopping right when you get off of a bus?

Yeah, this is complete madness. So I'm wondering, what's the best way for a New Yorker? Let's say you have tourists or someone from out of town who is stopped at the entrance to the subway or the exit to the subway. What's the best way to handle that? Well, you can have a nice polite, oh, excuse me, let me slip by you and sort of gently try to navigate around somebody blocking your way. The tone you want to use is sort of up to you. Ideally, it's sort of friendly and non-judgmental and sort of that. value neutral, depending on how your day is going. It may not be those things. But yeah, you could

definitely tell a tourist like, hey, I got to slip by you. Excuse me. I need to get around you. And my tone is not always ideal, but I'm working on it. All right. I want to talk about dogs in this city, which is a hot button for a lot of folks. People have strong feelings on how folks navigate New York City with their pets. So any thoughts initially? Yeah. I mean, you got to follow the rules. and you know what the rules are. You know, you have to pick up after your pet. You shouldn't be taking your pet where pets aren't allowed. You got to be mindful that not everybody is a pet person.

You know, when you're in a dog park, there are rules, you know, but some people break the rules. And so breaking the rules is rude. So I think if we just follow the rules that already exist, you know, that would be great. And etiquette is not about what you must do. Ediquette is actually voluntary. It's about what you should do. Well, for New Yorkers who are thinking, all right,

there's one thing I can do to make myself. a little bit better when moving through the city. What is one thing that someone could tackle today? I think it's just remembering that New York City is a group effort. Nobody built New York City alone. And we're all in it together. And so if you just take a beat, you know, before there's ever that interaction and just remember like, oh, we all kind of want the same things here. We all just want to live in a nice, polite society. And I can do my part to achieve that. And hopefully everybody else will do their part. That's what we can all do today. It's just to be mindful that we are not the only person here. That was etiquette expert Nick Layton talking with WNYC's Tiffany Hanson. Check out Nick's article,

10 etiquette rules to not be the worst in New York City on our news website, Gothamist. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.