Federal prosecutors plan to sue New York City over widespread civil rights violations
in the handling of adolescent inmates at Rikers Island, making clear their dissatisfaction
with the city’s progress in reining in brutality by guards and improving conditions at the jail
complex, a new court filing shows. The decision to take the city to court comes more than
four months after the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern
District of New York, issued a blistering report that cited a pervasive and “deep-seated
culture of violence” directed at teenage inmates at Rikers. The report found rampant use
of excessive force by correction officers, the overuse of solitary confinement and an ineffectual
system of investigating assaults by guards.That report, which followed a 2½-year investigation
by Mr. Bharara’s office, proposed more than 10 pages of remedial measures that prosecutors
said the city’s Correction Department would have to put in place, and warned that if the city did
not work toward that goal, the Justice Department could file a lawsuit and seek court-ordered
reforms. “While the United States had hoped to reach a speedy resolution with the city on these
critical issues,” Mr. Bharara said in the filing on Thursday, “thus far insufficient progress has
been made.”
In September, Mr. Bharara issued a strongly worded statement after The New York Times
reported that city officials had withheld key portions of a report on violence at Rikers from his
office during its investigation, and that officials involved in reporting distorted data had been
promoted. Mr. Bharara said the revelations did “not instill confidence in us that the city will
quickly meet its constitutional obligations.” In its filing, Mr. Bharara’s office asked a federal
judge in Manhattan for permission to join in an existing class-action lawsuit, Nunez v. City
of New York, over brutality at Rikers that had been filed by the Legal Aid Society and two
private law firms, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady and Ropes & Gray. In contrast to Mr.
Bharara’s investigation of the treatment of adolescent inmates, the Nunez case focuses
on all Rikers inmates, regardless of age.
Rather than a file separate lawsuit, Mr. Bharara’s office said in its filing on Dec 18 that it would
be most efficient to become part of the Nunez case and resolve all of the claims “with a single,
comprehensive remedy,” since settlement discussions had been underway for months in that
case. The prosecutors said the de Blasio administration and the plaintiff’s lawyers in the Nunez
lawsuit had agreed to the government’s joining that case, a legal maneuver that they said “will
facilitate much needed reforms at Rikers in the fastest and most efficient manner.”
The federal filing comes the day after Mayor Bill de Blasio visited Rikers and declared that
“progress is being made quickly” at the jail complex. Mr. de Blasio cited changes his administration
has made, including ending the use of solitary confinement for 16- and 17-year-old inmates.
Mr. Bharara’s office said in its filing that it had told city officials that any settlement must include
an agreement for a judge to continue supervising the case. A judge could also appoint a monitor
to oversee the city’s compliance.
Source: NY Times