Garrett, a 16-year-old boy from Brooklyn, loves fantasy novels and video games. And since April, according to a lawsuit, he has been left alone in a juvenile detention cell for weeks or months at time, despite New York state regulations prohibiting solitary confinement for minors.
According to the suit, filed last week in the Southern District of New York, Garrett was confined to his cell for 22 to 24 hours nearly ever day of his first month at the Industry Residential Center, near Rochester in upstate New York, “due to the perception that he posed behavioral problems.” He was denied access to education and interaction with his peers, and he often did not have use of a bathroom, according to the lawsuit.
In total, he has spent about four months in solitary confinement; as a result, he feels “anxious and depressed and often acts out to get attention and to mitigate the loneliness and isolation he suffers daily,” the lawsuit said. Garrett is still at the facility, according to the lawsuit, which did not specify why he was first detained.
The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, was filed by the Legal Aid Society and Jenner & Block LLP on behalf of Garrett and three other detainees, all of whom are Black males ranging in age from 16 to 20. They are currently being held in detention at facilities run by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.
The facilities are for youth up to 21 years old who are convicted of a crime in family or the youth part of criminal court. The system is intended to be rehabilitative, but youth are often held in solitary confinement as a form of punishment for “alleged rule infractions and, at times, minor misbehavior, including manifestations of youth’s disabilities,” according to the suit.
Children as young as 12 are regularly held in small, barren rooms for weeks and months on end across five facilities, according to the suit. The lawyers claim that youth are often held in solitary conditions to alleviate “dangerously low” staffing levels, and are forced to go to the bathroom in trash cans in their cells and then eat meals there.
State regulations prohibit holding minors in solitary confinement. But the agency uses loopholes, such as calling the practice by other names, to justify its use, the lawyers said.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Office of Children and Family Services said it was aware of the lawsuit. She did not answer questions about staffing, but said that the agency does not endorse or condone the use of isolation for punishment.
The lawsuit names as defendants DaMia Harris-Madden, commissioner of the state agency, and Norman Hall, deputy commissioner for the Division of Juvenile Justice and Opportunities for Youth.
Prolonged isolation, which United Nations officials have called torture, has been linked to brain damage, increased risk of self-harm and suicide.
Emma-Lee Clinger, a staff attorney with Legal Aid, said that young people are expected to come out of these situations unharmed, and “yet the state is responsible for inflicting this most serious harm upon them.”
Issac, a 17-year-old boy and plaintiff in the lawsuit, was exceeding academically before his detention at Goshen Secure Center in Orange County. It was his mother who noticed in phone calls that he was not doing well. She said she had to help him mitigate the mental and emotional impact, telling him to read his Bible and the letters she sent him.
At one point, his mother, who declined to be identified since her son is a minor and anonymized in the lawsuit, said she became so concerned about her son’s mental health that she called the facility to request he at least have an opportunity to meet with a clinician.
Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, known as the HALT law, in 2021, which does not apply to juvenile detention centers. It restricts prisons and jails from holding people in solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days. The policy also bars the use of solitary confinement for several groups, including minors and people with certain disabilities.
In 2024, a judge found that New York State prisons had been illegally holding prisoners too long in solitary confinement, despite the law. Last year, a court filing said the state was still holding prisoners in solitary confinement illegally.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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