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Lab Test Confirms Rat Poison in Rikers Island Meatloaf

The New York Daily News reports that the meatloaf that made inmates at Rikers sick last month was confirmed to have been tainted with Brodifacoum, a rat poison, according to results from a laboratory study commissioned by the plaintiffs. “There’s no justification for rat poison to be in an inmate’s food whatsoever,” the inmates’ lawyer, […]

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Rikers Island Officer Facing Charges Related To Death Of Mentally Ill Inmate

Corrections Officer Carol Lackner has been charged with falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing; both charges are related to Lackner’s lying about the circumstances in the death of inmate Jerome Murdough. The two main charges are felonies, but Lackner has also been charged with various misdemeanors. Murdough, a military veteran who battled mental illness […]

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Top Corrections Official Resigns Amid Rikers Island Corruption Scandal

At long last, one of the men at the center of the mass cover-up of violence within Rikers Island has resigned, reports The New York Post. William Clemons, the Chief of the Department of Corrections, has “submitted his resignation Monday under pressure from Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte,” according to the Post’s sources. Clemons became warden […]

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Officials At Rikers Island Lied To Families About Inmate Deaths

Rikers Island is a mess. In addition to the systemic abuse of minors and the “culture of violence” at the correctional facility, it seems that officials lie about inmate deaths that result from neglect. According to a report by DNAinfo, at least four families of patients who died while at Rikers in the past decade […]

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Rikers Island To Eliminate Solitary Confinement For 16- And 17-Year-Old Inmates

According to an internal memo, the New York City Correction Department will stop putting 16- and 17-year-old inmates into solitary confinement by the end of 2014, the New York Times reports. There are currently 51 adolescents in solitary confinement at Rikers Island, where it is used as “a primary form of punishment” of teens. In the memo dated September 25th, the correction […]

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Top Rikers Island Officials Caught Distorting Data On Violence

If you needed proof that New York’s jail system is rotten to the core, the New York Times has just obtained a confidential report which reveals edits made to a Rikers Island audit back in 2011. It proves that, contrary to the reports at the time, violence in the prison hadn’t actually decreased. Instead, data was manipulated, tracks were covered […]

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City Council Passes Bill Forcing Rikers Island To Report Inmates In Solitary Confinement, Their Suicides, Assaults

On Thursday, the City Council passed a bill requiring Rikers Island officials to issue quarterly reports on inmates in solitary confinement. The bill follows public revelations of chronic abuse and misconduct, including this month’s 79-page report from the United States Attorney’s Office in Manhattan which describes the correctional officers’ disturbing culture of violence, often targeting juvenile inmates.  CBS New York reports: Under the […]

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Report: Rikers Island Youth Face Rampant Abuse, Violence, Corruption

Rikers Island inmates aged 16-18 are subject to institutionalized abuse, constitutional rights violations and systemic corruption, according to the findings in a blistering U.S. Department of Justice report released on Monday. The 79-page report out of the United States Attorney’s Office in Manhattan details horrific conditions for male teenagers housed there between 2011-13. DOJ investigators say there is a […]

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Pussy Riot Visit Cecily McMillan At Rikers Island

Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot visited Rikers Island today, and spent several hours with 25-year-old protestor Cecily McMillan. McMillan was arrested for elbowing a cop who she said grabbed and bruised her breast during an Occupy Wall Street demonstration in 2012, was found guilty assaulting a police officer, and is awaiting sentencing […]

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