Bill Text: NY S03318 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Amended

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Bill Title: Establishes visiting policies for incarcerated people, to provide incarcerated people opportunities for personal contact with relatives, friends, clergy, volunteers and other persons to promote better institutional adjustment and better community adjustment upon release.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 16-0)

Status: (Engrossed) 2024-05-30 - referred to ways and means [S03318 Detail]

Download: New_York-2023-S03318-Amended.html

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                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________

                                         3318--A
            Cal. No. 368

                               2023-2024 Regular Sessions

                    IN SENATE

                                    January 30, 2023
                                       ___________

        Introduced  by Sens. SEPULVEDA, BAILEY, BRISPORT, BROUK, CLEARE, GIANAR-
          IS, GOUNARDES, HOYLMAN-SIGAL, JACKSON, KAVANAGH, MYRIE, RAMOS, RIVERA,
          SALAZAR, SANDERS -- read twice and ordered printed, and  when  printed
          to  be  committed  to  the  Committee  on  Crime  Victims,  Crime  and
          Correction -- recommitted to the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and
          Correction in accordance with Senate Rule 6, sec. 8 -- reported favor-
          ably from said committee, ordered to first and second report,  ordered
          to a third reading, amended and ordered reprinted, retaining its place
          in the order of third reading

        AN  ACT to amend the correction law, in relation to the establishment of
          visiting policies for incarcerated people

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

     1    Section 1. The correction law is amended by adding a new section 138-b
     2  to read as follows:
     3    §  138-b.  Visiting policies for the incarcerated. 1.  State and local
     4  correctional facilities shall establish  visiting  policies  which  give
     5  incarcerated people opportunities for in-person contact with their rela-
     6  tives,  children,  friends,  clergy,  volunteers  and  other  persons to
     7  promote individual transformation, better institutional  adjustment  and
     8  better  community  adjustment  upon release. Such program shall include,
     9  but not be limited to, (a) visiting hours that are reasonably likely  to
    10  accommodate  persons  traveling from within the state, including evening
    11  hours starting at six o'clock p.m.  and/or weekend hours, (b) visits  of
    12  sufficient  duration,  including  a minimum of one hour at local correc-
    13  tional facilities so that visitors and incarcerated people will be  able
    14  to  maintain relationship bonds, and (c) a published overcrowding policy
    15  that is equitable with due consideration to the distance traveled by the
    16  visitor, the frequency of the visitor's visits, the most recent occasion
    17  that the incarcerated person's visit was terminated due to overcrowding,

         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD00238-03-4
        S. 3318--A                          2

     1  and any other  individual  circumstances  that  limit  in-person  visits
     2  between the incarcerated person and the visitor.
     3    2. Video conferencing may supplement, but shall not take the place of,
     4  in-person  visits.  For the purposes of this section, video conferencing
     5  or other technologies that enable  remote  visitation  shall  not  count
     6  toward  the required number of visits or duration of visitation that any
     7  facility must offer to incarcerated individuals by law or regulation.
     8    3. No incarcerated person is to be visited against his or her will  by
     9  any person.
    10    § 2. This act shall take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after
    11  it shall have become a law.