S 5298: Prohibits corrections employees from participating in degrading behavior towards incarcerated persons or fellow employees; establishes any individual who participates in such behavior shall be disciplined by the department and may have their employment terminated for cause.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 5298 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN SENATE February 20, 2025 ___________ Introduced by Sen. SEPULVEDA -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction AN ACT to amend the correction law, in relation to prohibiting corrections employees from participating in degrading behavior towards incarcerated persons or fellow employees The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision 5 of section 137 of the correction law, as 2 amended by chapter 322 of the laws of 2021, is amended to read as 3 follows: 4 5. No incarcerated individual in the care or custody of the department 5 shall be subjected to degrading, racist or discriminatory treatment, and 6 no officer or other employee of the department shall inflict any blows 7 whatever upon any incarcerated individual, unless in self defense, or to 8 suppress a revolt or insurrection. When any incarcerated individual, or 9 group of incarcerated individuals, shall offer violence to any person, 10 or do or attempt to do any injury to property, or attempt to escape, or 11 resist or disobey any lawful direction, the officers and employees shall 12 use all suitable means to defend themselves, to maintain order, to 13 enforce observation of discipline, to secure the persons of the offen- 14 ders and to prevent any such attempt or escape. No employee of the 15 department shall insult an incarcerated individual or department employ- 16 ee by calling such individual a degrading name or otherwise engaging in 17 treatment intended to humiliate, offend, provoke or denigrate such indi- 18 vidual based on such individual's age, race, creed, color, national 19 origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military 20 status, sex, disability, predisposing genetic characteristics, or the 21 nature of the individual's crime of conviction. Any employee who 22 engages in such degrading treatment of an incarcerated individual or 23 another employee shall be disciplined by the department and may have 24 their employment terminated for cause. 25 § 2. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall 26 have become a law. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD00600-01-5