New York Codes, Rules and Regulations
Title 7 - DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND COMMUNITY SUPERVISION
Chapter VI - Special Housing Units
Part 320 - Residential Mental Health Units
Section 320.2 - Residential Mental Health Unit

A residential mental health unit (RMHU) is a program that includes a separate housing location within a correctional facility designed to address the corrections-based therapeutic treatment of incarcerated individuals currently diagnosed with a serious mental illness who, due to their behavior, are serving a confinement sanction. These incarcerated individuals often present with a complex interplay of antisocial behaviors and psychological factors. The unit is designed to meet the therapeutic needs of these incarcerated individuals, while maintaining appropriate safety and security on the unit. Although an RMHU is not operated as a disciplinary housing unit, in light of the security concerns associated with the behaviors that resulted in their confinement and other sanctions, incarcerated individuals that pose a significant and unreasonable risk to the safety and security of incarcerated persons, staff, or the facility may be subject to limitations on the quantity and type of property they are permitted to have , in order to maintain security and order on the unit. All incarcerated individuals will be offered four hours of structured out-of-cell therapeutic programming and/or mental health treatment along with three hours out-of-cell congregate programming, services, treatment, recreation, activities, and/or meals, with an additional one hour of recreation, for a total of seven hours out-of-cell on a daily basis.