The Dobbs Wire: Holding prisoners beyond their release dates!!??
A win in New York! Angry that prisoners serving time for sex offenses are being held beyond their release dates, a state appeals court has ordered New York’s Department of Corrections to make changes. Individuals hoping to re-enter community when their time is up instead find the exit door blocked – by laws and bureaucrats that make finding housing on the outside nearly impossible. Without an approved housing placement, they remain behind bars. This theft of liberty has been going on in New York (and apparently elsewhere) for years. The Department of Corrections “has an affirmative obligation to provide substantial assistance to the person in locating appropriate housing,” says the court. Courthouse News Service has the details of today’s ruling. Also below are links to the court’s decision and a 2014 New York Times story with background information. Congratulations to Miguel Gonzalez and his attorney Lauren Sanders of the Center for Appellate Litigation in New York City. This battle isn’t over, stay tuned. Note, New York court names can be confusing, this ruling is by a mid-level appeals court–the highest court in New York is called the Court of Appeals. –Bill Dobbs, The Dobbs Wire
Courthouse News Service | March 23, 2017
Extended Stay for Sex Offenders Angers Court
By ADAM KLASFELD
Excerpts: Railing against New York prison authorities Thursday, an appeals court said their betrayal of legal obligations to find suitable housing for an indigent sex offender improperly prolonged his sentence. “Good time” credits Gonzalez had earned in prison should have let him out in May, but Gonzalez instead had to wait out those four months behind bars because he had failed to find suitable housing. There are dozens of sex offenders like Gonzalez who have been forced to stay in prison beyond their release dates because of the law’s residency restrictions. MORE:
https://www.courthousenews.com/extended-stay-sex-offenders-angers-court/
New York Times | Aug. 21, 2014
Housing Restrictions Keep Sex Offenders in Prison Beyond Release Dates
By Joseph Goldstein
Excerpts: Dozens of sex offenders who have satisfied their sentences in New York State are being held in prison beyond their release dates because of a new interpretation of a state law that governs where they can live.
The new interpretation has had a profound effect in New York City, where only 14 of the 270 shelters under the auspices of the Department of Homeless Services have been deemed eligible to receive sex offenders. But with the 14 shelters often filled to capacity, the state has opted to keep certain categories of sex offenders in custody until appropriate housing is found.
Lawyers who represent sex offenders have prepared a map showing that nearly all of Manhattan is off limits to sex offenders. [T]he situation in New York is now presenting a new twist: The various residency restrictions that have consigned many sex offenders to life as transients are now being interpreted to require their continued incarceration. MORE:
Gonzalez v. Annucci
New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division for the Third Department – Case No. 521458
Opinion and order dated March 23, 2017:
http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/ad3/Decisions/2017/521458.pdf
This is the same thing that happens in Seminole County. That’s where I was, and that’s exactly what they told me, that I couldn’t get out until I had a legal living arrangement. What they don’t mention is, they don’t help you at all. I was not allowed to use a phone, barely ever even got a newspaper, could not contact anyone with any means other than a letter, for which I had to somehow get the supplies for when they charge you $2 a day to be there, so there was virtually no way of me finding anything for myself. I had to depend on other people, and they could barely help themselves much less help me.
In the end, I had to make arrangements with someone I can only assume was on the DOJ payroll, who had the worst trailers you can imagine in one of the worst parts of Sanford that you can imagine. Ceilings fell in, he would turn off the hot water just because he didn’t like you, he actually stole my food stamp card from the community mailbox that he didn’t let anyone have access to, I would wake up with roaches crawling on me because I had to sleep on the floor with several other guys in the same predicament, it was just a nightmare. Then I had to ride my bike almost 25 miles a day just to get to a 7$ an hour job, rain or shine.
Sometimes I wonder how I survived that awful place, and how it was even legal in the first place.