Tag: Riker’s Island
Two women who were incarcerated at Rikers Island’s Rose M. Singer Center, the complex’s women’s jail, have filed a horrifying class action suit against the City of New York alleging that they were repeatedly raped and sexually abused by a corrections officer named Benny Santiago. The lawsuit, according to Capital New York, was filed in […]
Ramsey Orta, the 23-year-old Staten Island man who recorded video of the takedown of Eric Garner that led to demonstrations for justice in New York and elsewhere, has been locked up at Rikers Island since February on drug charges unrelated to the Garner incident. He was also arrested for gun possession in August. A GoFundMe […]
Among the many counterproductive and illogical ways that a city can fill its jails and overburden its criminal justice system is by criminalizing things that homeless people do in order to survive. New York City, perhaps more than any other city, excels at spending money on arrests, prosecutions, and jails, rather than on programs that […]
Two more horrifying complaints against the Department of Corrections and its contractors have recently been filed. DNAinfo reports that court documents claim a doctor at the Manhattan Detention Center told an inmate to “throw part of his severed middle finger in the garbage” after a corrections officer accidentally crushed it in an electronic door, and […]
Medical negligence is a huge problem at Rikers Island and New York City Council members are finally acknowledging it. At a criminal justice and Department of Health City Council hearing on Tuesday, council members slammed the private medical provider, Corizon, for its treatment of inmates at Rikers. The Observer reports: “‘The allegations that have mounted […]
Rikers Island: It’s New York City’s own Alcatraz-by-the-airport, with a storied and sordid history to match. Named one of America’s 10 worst penal institutions by Mother Jones, the medieval conditions in the jails on Rikers have drawn much-needed attention from the press, from the mayor’s office, and from federal authorities. Earlier this month, Mayor de […]
Just months after the Department of Investigation showed how easy it is to get drugs, razor blades, and vodka into Rikers, the New York Daily News reports that a visitor made it past “initial screening” with a 12.5-inch butcher knife. The knife was discovered later “in a secret compartment on the side of his knapsack.” […]
According to internal documents obtained by the Daily News, over 1,000 — ONE THOUSAND! — corrections officers took a sick day or just didn’t show up to work at Rikers Island during that hyped up snowstorm on January 27th: The Correction Department force of about 3,000 officers scheduled that day was stretched dangerously thin, department […]
A report by the New York State Commission of Correction has urged the Justice Department to investigate possible civil rights violations in the death of a Rikers inmate, which resulted from “gross incompetence,” reports the New York Times. It is the latest damning report in a series that have, over the past six months, detailed […]
A new report by the Department of Investigation has uncovered yet more dysfunction at the troubled Rikers Island prison. The New York Times reports that more than a third of the 153 recently hired corrections officers “had problems that either should have disqualified them or needed further scrutiny” during the application process. The “red flags” […]
