§ 5-17 Screening for Risk of Victimization and Abusiveness.
RCNY § 5-17
(a)All inmates shall be assessed during an intake screening and upon transfer to another facility for their risk of being sexually abused by other inmates or sexually abusive toward other inmates.
(b)Intake screening shall ordinarily take place within 72 hours of arrival at the facility.
(c)Such assessments shall be conducted using an objective screening instrument. Such screening instrument shall be provided to the Board.
(d)The intake screening shall consider, at a minimum, the following criteria to assess inmates for risk of sexual victimization: (1) Whether the inmate has a mental, physical, or developmental disability; (2) The age of the inmate; (3) The physical build of the inmate; (4) Whether the inmate has previously been incarcerated; (5) Whether the inmate's criminal history is exclusively nonviolent; (6) Whether the inmate has prior convictions for sex offenses against an adult or child; (7) Whether the inmate is or is perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or gender nonconforming; (8) Whether the inmate has previously experienced sexual victimization; and (9) The inmate's own perception of vulnerability.
(e)The initial screening shall consider prior acts of sexual abuse, prior convictions for violent offenses, and history of prior institutional violence or sexual abuse, as known to the Department, in assessing inmates for risk of being sexually abusive.
(f)Within a set time period, not to exceed 30 days from the inmate's arrival at the facility, the Department will reassess the inmate's risk of victimization or abusiveness based upon any additional, relevant information received by the Department since the intake screening.
(g)An inmate's risk level shall be reassessed when warranted due to a referral, request, incident of sexual abuse, or receipt of additional information that bears on the inmate's risk of sexual victimization or abusiveness.
(h)Inmates may not be disciplined for refusing to answer, or for not disclosing complete information in response to, questions asked pursuant to paragraphs (d)(1), (d)(7), (d)(8), or (d)(9) of this section.
(i)The Department shall implement appropriate controls on the dissemination within the facility of responses to questions asked pursuant to this section in order to ensure that sensitive information is not exploited to the inmate's detriment by staff or other inmates. (Added City Record 11/25/2016, eff. 1/2/2017)
