NEW YORK (AP) — The newly appointed commissioner of New York City's jail system violated city law by sending as many as 47 mentally ill inmates into 23-hour confinement without first getting approval from mental health clinicians, a city oversight board said Tuesday. 
 
 Commissioner Joseph Ponte, who took the helm of the country's second-largest jail system in March, insisted at a meeting of the New York City Board of Correction he was trying to quell rising levels of violence. 
 
 Ponte, who had reduced the use of solitary confinement by two thirds in Maine's state prisons, said the June 13 move on Rikers Island was aimed at volatile inmates who have broken jailhouse rules and owe days in solitary. 
 
 But board members rejected the argument, noting the move jeopardized the health of some inmates, particularly those on psychotropic medications who were taken from air-conditioned mental observation units and put into uncooled solitary cells. A federal judge has ordered that such inmates, deemed heat-sensitive because the exposure to heat while on such drugs can be fatal, shouldn't be placed in uncooled cells. 
 
 Other inmates who were moved were denied medication and had seizure disorders, they said. At least one inmate suffered a seizure, Ponte said. 
 
 "I would just hope that you would review these issues and in the future instruct your staff to be consistent with the board standards and not to violate these rules which are not just rules but designed for the safety of the prisoners," said board member Dr. Robert Cohen. 
 
 Nearly 40 percent of the roughly 11,500 daily inmates in city jails have a mental health diagnosis, according to the Department of Correction and about a third of them suffer from serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The Associated Press has previously disclosed the deaths of two mentally ill inmates — one who essentially baked to death in a 101-degree cell in February — that have prompted calls for reform. 
 
 During a City Council oversight hearing on violence and mental illness at Rikers the day before the inmate moves, Ponte was repeatedly asked about a list of hundreds of inmates who owe time in solitary confinement but are in general population because there's not enough space. Correction officials argue that those inmates, many of whom they say are gang members, drive the violence on Rikers. 
 
 On Tuesday, Ponte told board members that figure is closer to 1,000 inmates. A number of them are high-risk for harming themselves and others and needed to be separated to stem surging violence, he said. 
 
 "What we don't have, and have not had for probably more than five years now, is a plan that's impacted the level of violence on Rikers Island," he told the board. 
 
 There were 21 slashings in one recent six-week period and a total of 87 during fiscal year 2014, according to a letter sent by Ponte to board members Monday night and obtained by the AP. There were a total of 68 total such slashing the previous fiscal year and 55 in fiscal 2012, the letter said. 
 
 "Under such circumstances, I felt that it was imperative to take prompt action to prevent further violence," he wrote. ||||| The entrance to Rikers Island is seen in New York, Tuesday, May 17, 2011. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, spent Monday night at infamous Rikers Island, after he was... (Associated Press) 
 
 Guards at New York City's massive Rikers Island jail complex are taking unusual precautions to make sure IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn doesn't come to any harm behind bars. 
 
 The 62-year-old banker and diplomat has a whole jail wing to himself, a medical device to make sure he doesn't stop breathing during the night and guards checking him 24 hours a day to make sure he doesn't kill himself. 
 
 Since his arraignment Monday on charges that he tried to rape a hotel maid, Strauss-Kahn has been held at Rikers Island, home to thousands of prisoners serving short sentences or inmates awaiting trial. 
 
 Because of his stature, Strauss-Kahn has been assigned to a facility at the jail that normally houses inmates with very contagious diseases, like measles or tuberculosis. 
 
 Department of Correction spokesman Stephen Morello said Strauss-Kahn has been placed in a wing with about 14 cells, all of which are empty except for his. He has his cell to himself, and there is a toilet and sink in the cell. He takes his meals there as well, with breakfast at 5 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m. and dinner at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. 
 
 All inmates arriving at Rikers Island are given a mental health assessment to determine whether they might pose a suicide risk. 
 
 Norman Seabrook, president of the union that represents corrections officers, said Strauss-Kahn did or said something during that evaluation that made doctors concerned. As a result, he is being monitored day and night. 
 
 A law enforcement official confirmed that Strauss-Kahn had been placed on a suicide watch. 
 
 The official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of prisoner medical information, said Strauss-Kahn had not tried to harm himself and appeared to be in good condition. 
 
 Seabrook said Strauss-Kahn has also been issued a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine, or CPAP, because he suffers from sleep apnea, a common condition that can cause a person to stop breathing for short periods during the night. The patient wears a mask that delivers extra air while they sleep. 
 
 Morello said Strauss-Kahn will be free to leave his cell from time to time and wander the wing, and can leave the building for an hour each day for recreation outdoors, if he chooses. When he does, he will be accompanied by guards and won't encounter other inmates. 
 
 As a pre-trial detainee, Strauss-Kahn isn't required to wear a prison uniform. He may bring his own clothing and wear what he chooses in his cell, whether it be designer suits, or something more casual. There are two exceptions: First, he has had to give up his shoes. All prisoners are required to wear standard-issue, lightweight, slip-on sneakers (although he is allowed to don regular dress shoes for court appearances, if he wishes). Secondly, to see visitors, he is required to put his civilian garb aside and don a gray jumpsuit, specially designed without pockets or other hiding places where contraband could be stashed. 
 
 Prisoners at Rikers Island are not given an inmate number like in the movies, but are identified by a statewide criminal justice system code that sticks with them for life, even if they are incarcerated later somewhere else. Strauss-Kahn's NYSID number is 09132366L. 
 
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 Associated Press video producer Matt Friedman in Washington contributed to this report.
– Guards at Rikers Island don't just neglect the mentally ill or let them bake to death, they also routinely brutally beat them, often without suffering any repercussions, a New York Times investigation has discovered. The Times uncovered a secret report compiled by a city department this year that found that 129 Rikers inmates suffered "serious injuries" in altercations with staff members over an 11-month span last year; 77% of those inmates had a mental health diagnosis. In most cases, the inmates were beaten while handcuffed. The Times investigated the incidents individually, and offer some disturbing details: When guards found Jose Bautista trying to hang himself, they saved him, but then allegedly threw him to the ground and punched him with such force that they perforated his bowel. It was one of five beatings noted in the report that followed a suicide attempt. Bautista needed emergency surgery, but guards took nine hours to drive him to the hospital—which is only 15 minutes away. When Andre Lane threw water or urine at guards, they allegedly handcuffed him to a gurney, wheeled him to a clinic that wasn't monitored by security cameras, and beat him so violently that the walls and cabinets were covered with his blood. After Brian Mack complained that guards were stealing inmates' food, a guard captain allegedly hit him in the eye with his radio, while another officer punched him in the jaw. He came away with a broken eye socket and jaw. Correction officials said he'd been in a fight with another inmate, but investigators noted no such fight was logged in prison records. None of the guards involved in any of the cases have faced criminal charges—or even administrative ones. Rikers has been under pressure to reform its treatment of mentally ill inmates—in January, for example, it announced it would stop putting the "seriously mentally ill" in solitary, though the Times notes that classification applies to a small segment of the population. Last week an oversight board said the newly-appointed city jail commissioner had in June illegally sent as many as 47 mentally ill Rikers inmates to solitary without consulting clinicians, the AP reports.