NYCHS presents Page 2 of the 19 original text pages of the Board of Correction's first publication (1978) of Minimum Standards for New York City Correctional Facilities.

Page 2 of 19 text pages.

Section 1.4 Different Languages
(a) Prisoners shall be permitted to communicate with other prisoners and with persons outside the institution by mail, telephone, or in person, in any language, and may read and receive written materials in any language.
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(b) Provisions shall be made by the Department to assist in assuring prompt access to translation services for non-English speaking prisoners.

Section 1.5 Effective Date
This Part shall take effect May 1, 1978.

PART 2 -- CLASSIFICATION

Section
2.1 Policy
2.2 Categories
2.3 Civil Prisoners
2.4 Limited Commingling
2.5 Security Classification
2.6 Effective Date

Section 1.1 Policy
Consistent with the requirements of this Part, the Department shall establish a classification system for prisoners.

Section 2.2 Categories
Page 2 of 1978 Minimum Standards.

Above is an image of Page 2 of the first publication (1978) of the Minimum Standards for New York City Correctional Facilities issued by the NYC Board of Correction, as given to NYCHS by former NYC DOC photographer Mark Mellett. NYCHS appreciates this and other archival material Mark Mellett has generously donated.

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(a) Prisoners serving sentence shall be housed separate and apart from prisoners awaiting trial or examination.

(b) Within these two categories, the following groupings shall be housed separate and apart:

  1. male adults, ages 21 and over;
  2. male minors, ages 16 to 20 inclusive;
  3. female adults, ages 21 and over;
  4. female minors, ages 16 to 20 inclusive.

Section 2.3 Civil Prisoners
(a) Prisoners who are not directly involved in the criminal process as detainees or serving sentence and are confined for other reasons including civil process, civil contempt or material witness, shall be housed separate and apart from other prisoners and, if possible, located in a different structure or wing. They must be afforded at least as many of the rights, privileges and opportunities available to other prisoners.

(b) Within this category, the following groupings shall be housed separate and apart:

  1. male adults, ages 21 and over;
  2. male minors, ages 16 to 20 inclusive;
  3. female adults, ages 21 and over;
  4. female minors, ages 16 to 20 inclusive.

Section 2.4 Limited Commingling
Nothing contained in this Part shall prevent prisoners in different categories or groupings from being in the same area for a specific purpose, including, but not limited to, entertainment, classes, contact visits or medical necessity.

Section 2.5 Security Classification
(a) The Department shall design a system of classification to group prisoners according to the minimum degree of surveillance and security required. The proposed system must be submitted to the Board for approval within 90 days after the effective date of this Part.

(b) The system of classification shall meet the following requirements:

  1. It shall be in writing and shall specify the basic objectives, the classification categories, the variables and criteria used, the procedures used and the specific consequences to the prisoner of placement in each category.
  2. It shall include at least two classification categories.
  3. It shall provide for an initial classification upon entrance into the corrections system. Such classification shall take into account only relevant factual information about the prisoner capable of verification.
  4. It shall provide for involvement of the prisoner at every stage with adequate due process.
  5. Prisoners placed in the most restrictive security status shall only be denied those rights, privileges and opportunities that are directly related to their status and which cannot be provided to them at a different time or place than provided to other prisoners.
  6. It shall provide mechanisms for review of prisoners placed in the most restrictive security status at intervals not to exceed four weeks for detainees and eight weeks for sentenced prisoners.

(c) Pending the design and adoption of a classification system, all prisoners shall be "general population" except those placed in "administrative segregation" pursuant to the procedures provided in existing court orders. In accordance with these orders, prisoners in "administrative

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NYC Board
of
Correction
Origins
NYC Board
of
Correction's
1st Report
NYC Board
of
Correction's
2nd Report
Bd. of
Correction
Comments to
Bd. of Estimate
1988:
Rose M.
Singer & Her
Rikers Jail


NY State Commission of Correction's current statewide
Minimum Standards for County Jails and Penitentiaries
and Minimum Standards for Police Lockups. Both PDFs.

Although the text of the 1978 NYC Board of Correction Minimum Standards for New York City Correctional Facilities is in the public domain, the other texts in this NYCHS presentation are not.
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They are copyrighted by the New York Correction History Society, with all rights reserved, either solely (such as image captions and various notes) or jointly with the respective identified authors.

NYCHS appreciates the board and board staff's cooperation and assistance during the presentation's preparation.

Although lacking the special features of this 2004 web presentation, an extremely large -- 20 Megabytes -- Adobe Acrobat PDF file of the 1978 booklet text is available.