A combination of prison policies, restrictive laws and a lack of housing support has kept many New York sex offenders in prison conditions for months or years after they’ve served their time.
As previously reported by the Marshall Project in a story that appeared at City Limits, a lawsuit filed by a group of offenders last year contends that the state is illegally detaining sex offenders beyond the end of their sentences. In addition to detaining offenders beyond the terms of their sentences, the complaint alleges that the state is mislabeling parts of its prisons as “Residential Treatment Facilities.” Ideally an RTF is a sort of halfway house between prison and community supervision. But in fact, the lawsuit says, the state is holding offenders in the same conditions and restrictions as prison.
The problem, however, runs deeper than the detention policies themselves. A mix of legal, political and fiscal constraints make it extremely difficult to find a place for sex offenders who have paid their debt to society to live.
“The New York corrections law requires that a Residential Treatment Facility be a community- based residence in or near a community where employment, educational and training opportunities are available for persons on parole or conditional release. These facilities are simply not by any stretch of the means community based residences,” says Matthew Freimuth, a lawyer for the offenders. Lawyers from Prisoners Legal Services, New York Legal Aid; and Willkie, Farr and Gallagher LLP represent the offenders.
The lawsuit alleges that New York State has, without legal authority, declared sections of several correctional facilities, including Fishkill and Woodbourne Correctional Facilities, as Residential Treatment Facilities (RTFs) in order house offenders after they have served their time.
“Fishkill houses 1,900 inmates,” he says. “It has a razor-wire topped fence, cell blocks. These petitioners who are supposed to be in RTFs wear the prison green, share the same exercise hall. They’re treated as if they were the same as the general population.”
New York State law allows for sex offenders to be housed in RTFs for up to six months following the completion of their prison sentences. Following that period of six months, the state does not have the authority to continue to detain offenders. It must release the offenders to community supervision. The lawsuit alleges that the state of New York is unlawfully holding these men beyond the “maximum expiration date” of their sentences. The suit alleges that in two cases, offenders were unlawfully detained for more than a year.
In Alcantara v. Annucci, the petitioners allege that the state has overstepped its legal boundaries by converting correctional facilities into RTFs and that the state and New York City have failed to adequately provide legally mandated assistance to offenders who are looking for housing as they approach and are held beyond their release dates.
“The petitioners are given no programs that really allow any sort of meaningful interaction with anybody from the community. Requests that they’ve made to work outside the facility are routinely denied. They don’t have any opportunity to leave the facility,” says Freimuth. “It’s not really meaningfully community based.”
Both sides of the dispute estimate that 85 to 100 sex offenders are currently held in RTFs at state corrections facilities. While the state would not comment on pending litigation, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) says the men are not being held indefinitely, only until they can find a bed in a compliant shelter. ..Continued.. by Shane English
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