What's happening
This bill allows inmates with mental illness to be held for further inpatient treatment after an emergency, without a court order.
Why it matters
Expands authority to hold inmates with mental illness. After an emergency admission resolves, correctional facilities can now continue to keep inmates for inpatient psychiatric treatment without needing immediate court involvement, potentially streamlining mental health care but also raising civil liberties concerns.
Aligns correctional mental health procedures with general hospital practices. The bill references sections 9.13 and 9.15 of the mental hygiene law, which permit hospitals to retain patients on a voluntary or informal basis, suggesting a move to treat incarcerated individuals more similarly to non-incarcerated psychiatric patients.
Impacts procedural safeguards and oversight. By allowing continued detention for treatment without a court order, the bill may reduce judicial oversight in the short term, which could make it easier to provide care but also increases the risk of prolonged involuntary hospitalization without external review.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Hold Mentally Ill Inmates Longer
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
3 Co-sponsors
History
- Referred to ways and means
- Reported referred to ways and means
- Referred to correction
Full text
1 pageUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
4233
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 1, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. WEPRIN, O'DONNELL, AUBRY -- read once and referred to the Committee on Correction
AN ACT to amend the correction law, in relation to holding inmates that suffer from mental illness for emergency purposes
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Subdivision 9 of section 402 of the correction law, as amended by chapter 164 of the laws of 1986, is amended to read as follows:
9. Except as provided in subdivision two of this section pertaining to prisoners confined in the city of New York, an inmate of a correctional facility or a county jail may be admitted on an emergency basis to the Central New York Psychiatric Center upon the certification by two examining physicians, including physicians employed by the office of mental health and associated with the correctional facility in which such inmate is confined, that the inmate suffers from a mental illness which is likely to result in serious harm to himself or others as defined in subdivision (a) of section 9.39 of the mental hygiene law. Any person so committed shall be delivered by the superintendent within a twenty-four hour period, to the director of the appropriate hospital as designated in the rules and regulations of the office of mental health. Upon delivery of such person to a hospital operated by the office of mental health, a proceeding under this section shall immediately be commenced, provided, however, that after such emergency has resolved such person may be held without court order for further in-patient treatment pursuant to sections 9.13 and 9.15 of the mental hygiene law.
§ 2. This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07258-01-9
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.