Press Room

NEW YORK: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after the City Council voted 42-9 to override vetoes of his legislation to ban solitary confinement in city jails and require basic policing transparency.

"These votes are a victory for transparency and public safety in our city, no matter what this administration would like New Yorkers to believe. Because of the advocates, the impacted individuals and families, the Speaker, City Council, and everyone who worked on this legislation, we have taken major steps forward in the difficult work of making our jails and our streets safer. It’s an important day for everyone committed to the hard work of advancing true public safety, made all the harder by a relentless misinformation campaign from this administration. It could take years to undo the damage from an intentional campaign of dishonesty. 

"The How Many Stops Act is a reporting bill. It is not the burden that the administration pretends it is – unless they choose to make it one. But let’s be clear, while the reporting is not as onerous as described, it is necessary and its impact is essential, building on the work of a decade ago and preventing us from going back to the bad old days. This isn’t preventing police work, it’s part of police work. It will help us get basic data on how policing practices are in effect on our streets, and craft public safety policy moving forward. It's clear we need change informed by data, not hysteria. 

"Banning the lasting vestiges of solitary confinement – and the use of isolation to try and change behavior– is a moral and governing imperative. Isolation causes lasting harm, causes recidivism, causes more violence, makes our jails less safe for people on both sides of the bars, and our city less safe. Our law allows for separation, for de-escalation, but not the harm which isolation is universally acknowledged to cause. Instead, it implements programming that might actually improve behavior and outcomes. We cannot keep the status quo of crisis on Rikers, and if we want different results, we have to do something different – but based on what we know can work.

"I sincerely hope that the administration will stop wasting time with misinformation and instead work with us on the most streamlined, effective way to implement these bills. The past several weeks of resources used to obstruct, and ultimately, to absurdly, dishonestly blame these bills for every unsafe incident in our city, have been harmful. We don’t have to guess the impact of how misinformation will work – too many who know better, including the mayor, have been doing it with bail reform for years despite evidence to the contrary — harming public safety discussions, public trust, and public policy in the process. When the public knows what these bills actually do, they support them, and the principles at their core. New Yorkers deserve to be safe and feel safe – these bills only serve to help achieve the first, while any continued misinformation and fear-mongering from the administration will prevent the second. 

"Having seen multiple vetoes overridden in just over two years in office, I hope that the mayor will now recognize the need to collaborate and prioritize true, holistic public safety solutions over politics."

"While the mayor included some promising proposals in his address, including recognizing the harm of social media on public health and safety, what was left unsaid was his attempt to pit the city against itself over a basic data reporting bill that strengthens public safety.

"I invite Mayor Adams to have a public, honest discussion with me about my office’s legislation so that New Yorkers can hear what the bill actually does: provide greater transparency in policing practices. After months of misinformation, I think the people who elected us both deserve to hear the truth."

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after Mayor Eric Adams' press conference today which amplified misinformation about Intro 549-A banning solitary confinement and Intro 586-A requiring basic police transparency. On Friday the mayor vetoed these bills, which passed with veto-proof majorities last month.

"I hope that the media will tell New Yorkers the truth about these bills because it’s clear we cannot trust the mayor to. Mayor Adams is threatening the long-term safety of our city every time he speaks about the imaginary legislation he opposes.

"Today’s press conference was a grotesque example of the mayor hiding behind the pain and fears of people he misinforms and manipulates. The weakness and shamelessness on display is astonishing.

"There was too much misinformation to address individually, but it’s infuriating to see the administration continue to deceive people about these bills and the reality on Rikers and in our streets. In particular, to defend the status quo on Rikers the day after another detainee died under the oversight of this administration, left without so much as a mattress to lay on, is disgusting. The Mayor is downplaying death on Rikers. And to attribute the real risks corrections officers face – including one whose arm as broken yesterday  – to a bill he just vetoed is absurd. 

"Whatever the administration wants to categorize a Level One Stop as – today, they breathtakingly asserted it is ‘not a stop,’ the NYPD Patrol Guide already requires logging of those interactions. Is the mayor suggesting officers are already violating the patrol guide?

"We can’t hear from Layleen Polanco, Brandon Rodriguez, or Kalief Browder about the need to ban solitary confinement on Rikers, because it took their lives. We can’t hear from Allan Feliz, Delrawn Small, or Eric Garner about the need for accountability and transparency in policing stops. So it’s up to those of us invested in public safety, not political protection, to speak up, call out the misinformation propping up unjust systems, and change those systems."

Excerpts refuting the mayor’s misinformation:

From the How Many Stops Act:

“The term “investigative encounter” means an interaction between a member of the department and a member of the public for a law enforcement or investigative purpose. The term does not include a casual conversation or interaction between a member of the department and a member of the public unless such conversation or interaction is based on or, in the course of such conversation or interaction, an officer develops: an objective credible reason to approach; a founded suspicion that such member of the public has engaged in or will engage in criminal activity; a reasonable suspicion that such member of the public has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime; or a reasonable cause to believe that an offense is being or has been committed.

From the Solitary Confinement ban:

“Use of restraints. 1. The department shall not place an incarcerated person in restraints unless an individualized determination is made that restraints are necessary to prevent an imminent risk of self-injury or injury to other persons. In such instances, only the least restrictive form of restraints may be used and may be used no longer than is necessary to abate such imminent harm. Restraints shall not be used on an incarcerated person under the age of 22 except in the following circumstances: (i) during transportation in and out of a facility, provided that during transportation no person shall be secured to an immovable object; and (ii) during escorted movement within a facility to and from out-of-cell activities where an individualized determination is made that restraints are necessary to prevent an immediate risk of self-injury or injury to other persons."

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after Mayor Eric Adams vetoed Intro 549-A, which would ban the isolation of solitary confinement in city jails. The City Council passed the bill with a with veto-proof majority last month.

"With this veto, the mayor has condemned New Yorkers to suffer in solitary confinement and isolation, and he did so after the cameras were turned off and backs were turned. It’s cowardly, weak, shameful, and entirely expected from this version of this mayor.

"I don’t think there’s a single person in the city outside the mayor’s office who thinks the status quo on Rikers right now is good and effective. The ongoing use of solitary confinement and isolation in New York City – no matter what the administration calls it – is indefensible, and vetoing the ban is inexcusable. If we want different results, we have to do something different, and banning isolation – while allowing for separation and de-escalation – is good for public safety. The mayor’s veto makes our jails and our city less safe.

"The administration needs to get its stories straight before it decides to deceive New Yorkers about our bills, otherwise they’ll continue to contradict themselves and deliberately confuse the issues. Which is it – that solitary confinement doesn't exist, or that they don’t want to ban it? 

"The federal monitor is right that Rikers is in a dangerous state, one that the administration has shown themselves unwilling or unable to correct. But fears that the Department of Correction will be unable to operate without isolating detainees are not a valid reason to oppose improving conditions. We don’t make laws to conform to failing systems, we make laws to change them. We would be happy to work with the administration on the most effective ways to implement this legislation, but that would require them engaging in good faith, which they have repeatedly refused to do.

"We would be happy to clarify for the administration the key elements of a bill they clearly haven’t read, after the City Council overrides this misguided, performative, ego-driven veto."

Read the full text of Intro 549-A.

"With this veto, the mayor is threatening New Yorkers’ safety to advance his own ideological and personal political agenda. Either he is vetoing the bill without reading it, or he has been deliberately deceiving people to scare New Yorkers and justify his dangerous choice. I’m angered by his selfishness.

"Mayor Adams isn’t just following in the footsteps of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, he is going further into the wrong side of history. He is threatening New Yorkers’ safety to protect his ego.

"Transparency in policing should not be a point of conflict or confrontation, it should be a shared goal and basis for conversation. This is a basic reporting bill, rooted in what the NYPD is already required to do, and yet the mayor has engaged in the most flagrant misinformation campaign I have seen from any administration in my time in office, misleading both the public and the police. Through simple reporting on NYPD stops, we can prevent the kinds of bias-based policing we’ve seen in the past, build trust in often over-policed areas, and continue the work that began a decade ago amid the height of the abuses of Stop, Question, and Frisk. This isn’t preventing police work, this is police work. The mayor is opposing a bill that doesn’t exist, and perpetuating harm against the Black and Brown communities he claims to speak for. 

"When the City Council overrides this veto, hopefully the administration will move forward to faithfully execute the legislation instead of sabotaging it and hurting public safety."

Read the full text of  Intro. 586-A.

"As the mayor reportedly plans to veto two bills critical to public safety, I would implore him to read the bills we passed, rather than the deceitful misinformation he and others have pushed. A full understanding of the legislation makes it clear that enacting these reforms will be good for public safety, while preventing them will make our city less safe. Mayor Adams is following in the path toward the wrong side of history where Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have gone before.

"A symbolic veto of the bills that the Council will ultimately override would be a misguided strategy which would only undermine the public’s confidence in the administration to make the city safer and more just. I urge the mayor to stop fear-mongering, stop misinforming people he claims to serve, read the bills, and reconsider."

Read the full text to Intro. 549-A, a bill to ban solitary confinement in city jails, and Intro. 586-A, a bill to advance transparency in policing.