Bill Text: NY A03880 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Prohibits corrections employees from participating in degrading behavior towards incarcerated persons or fellow employees; establishes any individual who participates in such behavior shall be disciplined by the department and may have their employment terminated for cause.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-01-03 - referred to correction [A03880 Detail]

Download: New_York-2023-A03880-Introduced.html

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                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________

                                          3880

                               2023-2024 Regular Sessions

                   IN ASSEMBLY

                                    February 8, 2023
                                       ___________

        Introduced  by M. of A. JACKSON -- read once and referred to the Commit-
          tee on Correction

        AN  ACT  to  amend  the  correction  law,  in  relation  to  prohibiting
          corrections employees from participating in degrading behavior towards
          incarcerated persons or fellow employees

          The  People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:

     1    Section 1. Subdivision 5 of section 137  of  the  correction  law,  as
     2  amended  by  chapter  322  of  the  laws  of 2021, is amended to read as
     3  follows:
     4    5. No incarcerated individual in the care or custody of the department
     5  shall be subjected to degrading, racist or discriminatory treatment, and
     6  no officer or other employee of the department shall inflict  any  blows
     7  whatever upon any incarcerated individual, unless in self defense, or to
     8  suppress  a revolt or insurrection. When any incarcerated individual, or
     9  group of incarcerated individuals, shall offer violence to  any  person,
    10  or  do or attempt to do any injury to property, or attempt to escape, or
    11  resist or disobey any lawful direction, the officers and employees shall
    12  use all suitable means to  defend  themselves,  to  maintain  order,  to
    13  enforce  observation  of discipline, to secure the persons of the offen-
    14  ders and to prevent any such attempt  or  escape.  No  employee  of  the
    15  department shall insult an incarcerated individual or department employ-
    16  ee  by calling such individual a degrading name or otherwise engaging in
    17  treatment intended to humiliate, offend, provoke or denigrate such indi-
    18  vidual based on his or her age, race,  creed,  color,  national  origin,
    19  sexual  orientation,  gender    identity or expression, military status,
    20  sex, disability, predisposing genetic characteristics, or the nature  of
    21  the  individual's crime of conviction.  Any employee who engages in such
    22  degrading treatment of an incarcerated individual  or  another  employee
    23  shall  be disciplined by the department and  may  have  their employment
    24  terminated for cause.
    25    § 2. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day  after  it  shall
    26  have become a law.

         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD07130-01-3