Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin
December 11, 2022
Page A12

When COVID hit, the doors to state facilities slammed shut to visitors. Two years later, families regularly visit loved ones in nursing homes, all state prisons and hospitals.

Yet for the many thousands with friends and relatives locked in county jails, the doors remain closed. It is time for county sheriffs to reopen their jails — and do so fully and transparently.

It takes a struggle to do this, as those of us in Broome County know all too well. As the Vera Institute has documented, our county regularly has the highest jail incarceration rate among all the state’s counties. Here, the sheriff, backed by the county lawyer, steadfastly refused to return to visitation, arguing the danger of COVID.

Local activists associated with Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier (JUST), with the assistance of Legal Services of Central NY, filed a lawsuit this past May charging that visitation is a basic right enshrined in the New York state constitution. State Supreme Court Judge Blaise ruled in our favor, ordering a return to the pre-COVID visitation schedule.

This the sheriff appealed. And lost again. Forced to open, he did so on a truncated schedule in defiance of the court. County lawyers in court — the sheriff refused to appear — reported the schedule came from state Commission of Correction. Yet when asked the commission denied in writing any correspondence with the sheriff on the matter.

JUST now awaits a ruling on its filing charging the sheriff with civil and criminal contempt of court and a return to a full, five-days-a-week schedule.

Broome is but the tip of an invisible and worsening harm syndrome across the state. Visitation is still denied in upstate jails. More grievously, the reopening of jails has circumscribed everywhere the rights and basic humane treatment of the incarcerated, including their families. Visitation hours across the state have been seriously trimmed back, making it impossible for people to visit their sons, daughters, wives, children and friends. Families continue to spend millions on ruinous video and telephone bills; calls from jails are commonly 25 cents per minute, versus less than 4 cents from state prisons. Commissary prices have been raised dramatically, and food and hygiene products increasingly limited. Families are no longer able to order supplemental food packages from Walmart or Amazon to be sent to their loved ones. Even the mailing in of bras and Christian crosses, allowed by state regulations, are turned back. The list of new restrictions under the cover of COVID secrecy accelerates unseen, the denial of humane treatment steadily increases.

Criminologists will tell you that maintaining close contact with families reduces both recidivism and violence in jails. It’s time for state and county authorities to do the right thing: act humanely, morally and legally, and transparently reopen jails across the state.

Bill Martin, of Johnson City, is a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier, and professor emeritus of sociology at Binghamton University.