Activist groups gathered outside the Broome County Jail on Sept. 29 to observe the return of in-person visitation.

On May 13, Joshua Cotter, an attorney at Legal Services of Central New York, filed a class action lawsuit against Broome County and Brome County Sheriff David Harder for prohibiting in-person visitation and overcharging for mobile communication at the Broome County Jail. Cotter filed these charges on behalf of Justice and Unity for Southern Tier (JUST), a nonprofit activist group dedicated to fighting mass incarceration, who claim the jail’s refusal to resume visitation during the decline of COVID-19 is a human rights violation.

JUST won the lawsuit in August, with Judge Oliver Blaise III, a Supreme Court Justice of the Broome County Courthouse, mandating the reopening of in-person visitation by Sept. 5. While Broome County and Harder filed an appeal on Aug. 30, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ordered the jail to grant Blaise’s motion by Sept. 29.

However, according to JUST, the visitation hours have now been “drastically reduced” from the original 40 hours per week, providing sufficient reason for a contempt of court to be filed. The jail offers 13 hours a week of visitation to inmates in general housing and two hours to all other incarcerated persons.

Bill Martin, a founding member of JUST and a professor emeritus of sociology at Binghamton University, described the reduced hours as a “human rights violation.” Martin said that the jail’s visitation time is much less than visitation time available at other facilities.

“There has been an extraordinary reduction in the normal inmate visiting hours, which has been a unilateral decision by the sheriff, which, according to our legal person, is in defiance of the supreme court stay,” Martin said. “So we are expecting to file a contempt of court and pursue it yet further. Visitation has been open in the state prisons for a very long time, open in the county nursing home [and] open in the jails surrounding Broome County — and if you look at the hours at places like Cortland or some of the other jails it’s much more expansive than it is here.”

Visitation before the shutdown, according to the decision and order signed by Blaise on Aug. 18, was available every day for 13 hours. According to the court document, visitors were required to sign in and undergo screenings, among other protocols.

Specific visitation hours set by the jail were posted outside the visitation entrance as visitation reopened on Sept. 29. According to the notice, inmates are allowed two hours of visitation time within each available timeframe, and are subject to losing an hour per week as penalty.

“It is the responsibility of each inmate to set up his or her visitation times,” the notice reads. “You will only be allowed to receive your visitation on those scheduled times and will not be allowed to break up your allotted times to different hours and days. You may lose up to one hour of visitation time per week for disciplinary offenses.”

Fred Akshar, candidate for Broome County sheriff and a New York state senator for the 52nd district, worked for Harder at the Broome County Jail from 2002 to 2015, before moving up to the rank of undersheriff. Akshar said he supports the court’s decision.

“I agree wholeheartedly with the Appellate Division, just as I did with the lower court’s decision,” Akshar wrote in an email. “The reality is, the ruling of the lower court should have never been appealed.”

According to the same decision and order signed by Blaise, the Broome County Jail claimed it decided to keep visitation closed in attempt to maintain a COVID-19-safe environment.

“In opposition, defendant represents that the decision to prohibit in-person visitation at the jail is to attempt to prevent the spread of COVID-19 between visitors and inmates with the goal of reducing the risk to inmates in the facility and the public,” the document reads.

A source acquainted with an inmate at the Broome County Jail spoke with Pipe Dream about their experience with visitation and COVID-19 regulations within the visitation area. The source wished to remain anonymous due to concerns of retaliation from the prison. They described the visitation area as having limited COVID-19 regulations, with no implementation of masks, vaccines, quarantine or social distancing requirements.

The source described visitation as rows of tables with “plastic barriers” separating the inmates from the visitors, who are allowed “a brief hug and kiss at the end” of their visit.

“It is another way to penalize people for being able to be there and then, control,” the source said. “There is this plastic barrier, but it’s not a COVID-19 regulation because it only goes to your waist. So when we hug, we literally have to lean over this plastic barrier. It is not intended to cover our mouths and noses when we are talking to each other.”

Martin also described the jail’s COVID-19 regulations as limited, with “no vaccination requirements” for correctional officers (COs) or inmates.

Upon visiting the waiting room outside the visitation area, a Pipe Dream reporter observed no masks being worn by any visitors or the COs. The room had 50 adjacent seats available for visitors.

Jacey Ruisi, a sophomore double-majoring in English and psychology, said she finds the jail’s lack of COVID-19 precautions suspicious.

“Not implementing COVID-19 regulations within the jail just shows that [Harder’s administration] was not serious about it, and makes it seem like they had ulterior motives for the visitor ban,” Ruisi said. “By not being consistent with that rule for every inmate, it seems like it comes from an abuse of power more than moral reasoning.”

Harder did not reply to a request for comment.