"We are eager to review the federal monitor's input -- input we requested before passage of the bill. It appears that the separation strategy the monitor is reportedly requesting is exactly what Intro 549-A does. Our bill does not prevent separation into alternative restrictive housing, it prevents the harm of isolation through solitary confinement.
"The administration, which routinely undermines and ignores the federal monitor, cannot credibly use the monitor's condemnation of its long-standing failures and deceptions around running Rikers Island in order to condemn an effort to actually fix it. It is not our job to create laws that conform to failing systems, it is our job to create laws to change them, and if you want something different to happen, you have to do something different. The administration can no longer stand by a status quo that is indefensible and a practice that is unacceptable."