Press Room

"When we said, when advocates shouted, that conservatives would attack the core rights afforded to Americans when given the power, when we protested Trump, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett, when we spoke about the consequences of the right wing’s agenda, it wasn’t hyperbole. It was a warning, one now realized as the Court strips away a fundamental right to privacy and bodily autonomy, striking at our liberty and at the health and safety of women and pregnant people across the country.

"People will die because of today’s decision. People have and will always seek abortions, and criminalizing them, making services inaccessible, only makes them more dangerous; pregnant people with no other options will be forced to endure torture or put their lives at risk. On the orders of a radical, far-right agenda, carried out by conservative justices, millions of Americans will lose their rights to body autonomy, to dignity, and to privacy – with harm falling disproportionately on low income communities and people of more color.

"With the court not only abandoning but endangering people, we need to stand up – for our rights and for our neighbors. Today we mourn, we comfort, and then we move to fight, to action – we cannot wait, because the people who brought this harm today are not waiting to bring more.

"The conservative movement and the judges it installed have done exactly what they promised to do, and they’re promising to do more. This decision openly invites, encourages further attacks on women, on the LGBTQIA community, on communities of color, on the fundamental rights that we have fought for and won across decades and even centuries.

"In New York, I want people to know that abortion is legal in our city and state, and it will remain that way – this decision does not change that. At the same time, we can do more to protect the reproductive rights of both New Yorkers and people who come here for abortion services, and the Governor must bring the legislature back into session to enshrine the Equality Amendment.

"We can be stricken today – horrified, furious, distraught – but we cannot be still, and we cannot be silent. We can’t lose our will to fight, strengthened by a movement of millions and looking to the women who have long led that movement and this work as we fight our way forward and resist being dragged back, devastated but never defeated."

"Last year, the United States saw more gun deaths than any other year in our history. Last month, gun violence stole the lives of ten people in a Buffalo supermarket. Nineteen children were massacred in a Texas school. This week in Harlem, nine people were shot and one killed in a mass shooting that has become so frequent it barely made headlines.

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"The Supreme Court’s answer to this crisis is to make it easier to conceal and carry a gun, to arm oneself with the constant threat of violence and pain. To bring more hidden weapons to our streets, subways, and schools all under the guise of safety and self defense. The Supreme Court places our country’s demonic obsession with guns, paired with conservative ideology, ahead of the over 40,000 lives that will be lost this year in our country to gun violence.

"This is not well-regulated. It is irresponsible, illogical, and immoral.

"We cannot let this conservative, counterintuitive ruling deter us from what we know works to address the epidemic of gun violence. In addition to moving quickly to resource community violence initiatives on a city level and pass federal legislation, the state legislature should immediately be called back into session to pass legislation addressing this ruling before the iron pipeline can burst and flood our city and state with more weaponry and preventable death."

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement before the Rent Guidelines Board's final vote this evening on proposed rent increases for rent-regulated apartments in New York City. He also testified before the Board last week in the Bronx – video of that testimony is available here.

"This evening, the Rent Guidelines Board will vote on proposed rent increases for the two million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments. Increasing rents – as they seem poised to do – would only exacerbate the issues the board is tasked with considering, helping neither tenants nor owners. Landlords cannot get more money from people who just don’t have it, and the eviction crisis will only become more entrenched.

"Just last week, the median rent in Manhattan hit $4,000. Our city is growing ever more unaffordable and inaccessible to the people who call it home, make it run, and help define New York. The minimum wage remains flat while everything else grows more expensive – groceries, childcare, utilities, and now, rent. Once again, we’re asking the people with the least to do more with less. We’re evicting the very same people we called “heroes” in 2020 and sending a resounding message that they don’t deserve a safe and stable place to live. 

"There are already tens of thousands of homeless New Yorkers, and since last year, there has been a sharp rise in the number of New Yorkers living on the street. If the Board follows through with the proposed increases, they vote to add even more families, children, disabled New Yorkers, and lifelong neighbors to that number. The suggested increases are unreasonable, untenable, and unacceptable."

"This morning our city is devastated by the news of another mass shooting, this one in Harlem, as nine New Yorkers were shot and a 21 year old young man killed. As the country marked Juneteenth, a historically Black neighborhood was reminded of the pain we still endure. As we marked Father's Day, families were left traumatized and grieving. I pray for the victims, for their families, for the entire community.

"Mass shootings are not all perpetrated by a single shooter who could be red flagged, not all committed with a semi-automatic weapon. Depending on where and how they happen, they may not even all make headlines. The two constants across mass shootings are the devastation left in their wake and the guns that lead to such loss.

"On both a federal and state level, we are finally seeing some incremental movement on measures that could help prevent the mass shootings that make national news. Alongside that work, we have a moral obligation to re-commit to the strategies that we know work to prevent the street level shootings, a constant presence oppressing communities that have seen too much violence, known too much pain, and are not asking too much in calls for urgent relief and transformational change."

NEW YORK: New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams introduced legislation in the New York City Council today to truly ban solitary confinement in city jails. This bill marks the most comprehensive and concrete legislative effort to end the practice of solitary, which the United Nations defines as torture, on a citywide level. He announced the introduction at a City Hall press conference this morning– full video of the event is available here.

"Solitary confinement is torture, and for some New Yorkers– Kalief Browder, Layleen Polanco, Brandon Rodriguez, and too many others – it has been a death sentence," said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. "We owe it to them, and to all who have suffered in isolation, to prevent future harm by passing this bill and codifying a clear, concrete ban on solitary. With Rikers Island in crisis, presenting immediate danger to people on both sides of the bars, it’s absolutely critical that we move quickly to end this deeply damaging, ineffective practice, while allowing for the possibility of short-term separation to ensure safety. I’m proud to carry this legislation forward, and together with the movement that has helped New York see progress on this issue over many years, to finally, truly end solitary confinement in our city."

The new bill, Intro. 549, is based in the experiences of incarcerated individuals and the need for due process, defines and prohibits the punitive practice of solitary confinement, closing loopholes previously used by the Department of Correction (DOC) to continue solitary in all but name. It allows and establishes strict guidelines for any temporary and time-specified separation in specific instances while preventing the isolation of solitary and the harm that it brings. Its introduction comes amid an ongoing crisis on Rikers Island, where six people have lost their lives in 2022, and as a federal court has required the administration to make immediate, urgent reforms.

Under the legislation, “The department shall not place an incarcerated individual in a cell, other than at night for sleep for a period not to exceed eight hours in any 24-hour period or during the day for count not to exceed two hours in any 24-hour period, unless such confinement is necessary to de-escalate immediate conflict that has caused injury or poses a specific, serious and imminent danger to a person’s safety.”

This ban builds on 2020 legislation which received a hearing but was never brought to a vote. This new bill from Public Advocate Williams – while similar in many respects – clarifies many components critical to functionally ending solitary as we know it by expanding definitions, delineating a process for appealing DOC decisions, and granting an incarcerated individual due process rights not previously afforded. It establishes clear guidelines and a framework to implement the prohibition of solitary confinement while allowing DOC to separate incarcerated individuals when needed.

As it is introduced today, the bill is co-sponsored by Council Member Carlina Rivera, who chairs the Committee on Criminal Justice, as well as Council Members Tiffany Cabán, Crystal Hudson, Julie Won, Lincoln Restler, and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

Solitary confinement is torture. It causes significant and irreparable harm, and is seen as one of the most alarming and inconspicuous domestic human rights issues in U.S. prisons today. The lack of meaningful daily social interactions can lead to loneliness and irreversible trauma, and solitary confinement causes lifelong psychological, emotional, and physical damage.

Solitary’s impact is even greater on individuals with pre-existing mental illnesses and increases the risk of self-harm and suicide. It disproportionately affects Black and Latinx people, young people, and people with mental health needs, as well as LGBTQ+ and TGNCNBI people.

In New York City, solitary confinement can be a death sentence. Carina Montes, Jason Echeverria, Kalief Browder, Bradley Ballard, Layleen Polanco, and Brandon Rodriguez have died because of their experiences with this inhumane practice.

The bill reinstates due process for any individual ultimately put in restrictive housing under the conditions permitted, establishing an in-court hearing process and notification of the incarcerated person and their legal representatives. It does allow for the usage of emergency lock-ins in certain, specific situations, and permits exceptions when harm may be present.

It clearly and strictly defines terms such as restrictive housing, cell, and out of cell, specifies the timeframe a person can be held in that cell, requires medical staff check-ups every 15 minutes a person is alone in their cell, and prohibits restraints on people under 22 years of age.

The legislation, which further requires extensive reporting on the use of restrictive housing, would be enacted 60 days after passage. Read the full bill here.

"Too many lives have been lost due to solitary confinement and other horrific conditions on Rikers Island," said Victor Pate, #HALTsolitary Campaign Co-Director. "The City Council must pass legislation to truly end torture and solitary confinement. The city continues to violate its own minimum standards and the state HALT Solitary Confinement law. Now is the moment for the City Council to act."

"It is our duty to protect, defend, and fight for the human rights of people who have been deprived of their liberty," said Darren Mack, Co-Director at Freedom Agenda. "The Department of Correction's blatant violations of the Board of Corrections minimum standards and state law is unrelenting and shameful. Now is the time for this City Council to take action and end solitary confinement in New York City."

"What is happening on Rikers Island is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe," said Tahanee Dunn, Director of the Prisoners Rights Project at The Bronx Defenders. "By any name, solitary confinement is torture. We must put a stop to it once and for all. We urge the City Council to pass legislation ending this shameful practice immediately."

"This year, Gun Violence Awareness Month begins as this uniquely American epidemic is dominant in our headlines and our hearts, in the wake of several mass shootings in the last weeks. At the same time, that violence and the devastation it delivers is not confined to these high profile attacks. Over Memorial Day weekend, nearly as many people were shot in our city alone as had their lives stolen in Buffalo and Uvalde. We are aware of gun violence, we are hurting, we are grieving, and across the country, we are in desperate need of solutions.

"While we push for change on a federal level, against the NRA and its active and implicated allies, we can enact change in New York City and State today. Funding gun violence prevention, especially at its root causes, is essential in the last days of the state legislative session and in the coming city budget, and the state must strengthen existing programs such as red flag laws while also passing new legislation including microstamping.

"There are no excuses, and no time to delay. It’s time to move from awareness to action."