Over the last seven years, NYC taxpayers have spent more than $18 million on a federal monitor to help improve officer training, strengthen policies, and make Rikers Island safer for detainees and staff. Yet reform was neither enduring nor enforceable.
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022.More than a decade ago, correction officers at Rikers Island beat detainees so severely that they broke their bones, perforated their eardrums, injured their spines, and punctured their lungs, according to afiled at the time. Detainees demanded the federal court’s “strong hand to finally put an end” to the abuse.
The city jails system is actually far deadlier and more dangerous than it was in the fiscal year before Martin arrived: The rate of fights and assaults per detainee has nearly doubled, according tofrom the mayor’s office. A person in custody is seven times more likely to be seriously injured by another detainee. Staff are almost twice as likely to be assaulted. And slashings and stabbings have increased each of the last four years.
Martin did not return a request for comment. His deputy, Anna Friedberg, declined comment, citing a provision in the consent decree barring the monitoring team from talking with the media.The monitoring team, now made up of eight correction experts and attorneys, had collected $17,824,660 as of last week, according to the New York City Law Department. An attorney and jails expert who was a corrections officer in Texas 50 years ago, Martin has personally earned $2.
“Does this cost the city a lot of money beyond just the monitor and this team's salary? The answer is yes,” Vinny Schiraldi, a city correction commissioner under Mayor Bill deBlasio, told Gothamist. “And it's not successful. It's not so bad if it costs money and it works. But so far, it doesn't.”NYC Board of Correction via FOIL request
incarcerated teenagers were “consigned to a corrections crucible that seems more inspired by 'Lord of the Flies' than any legitimate philosophy of humane detention."Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office, or consent decree, mandated that the department implement comprehensive guidelines on the use of force, including bans on hitting detainees on head or groin. Use of force to punish or discipline was no longer allowed.
The explanation that the monitor gave for this violence is the same as it's always been: Failure to adhere to basic security protocols, like locking cell doors, and poor situational awareness, like failing to recognize escalating tensions.
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