The city of NY agreed to pay up to $53 million in total to more than 4,000 arrested awaiting trial who were illegally locked up in isolation cells up to 23 hours a day, according to court documents.
The city will have to compensate those detainees who were confined in isolation cells for having broken some prison rule in which they awaited the start of their process, failing to comply with the legal protocol, which requires the holding of a hearing.
These are two facilities located in the Rikers Island prison and a third located in the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
According to the agreement, each of the 4,413 people who suffered this treatment will be able to collect up to 12,000 dollars, of which 25% will be deducted for the payment of fees, lawyers and costs.
In the lawsuit, the lawyers called this practice of “placing a substantial number of incarcerated persons in solitary confinement facilities indefinitely without due process and for illegitimate purposes” unconstitutional.
The conditions of the prisoners in New York, especially in the reviled Rikers prison, are regularly criticized by activists and human rights organizations.
The bad conditions led the previous municipal administration to decree its progressive closure, a matter that has remained in the air with the new mayor, Eric Adams.
On April 5, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) civil rights association sponsored another class action lawsuit against illegal confinement in New York prisons.
For the NGO, “solitary confinement is the most extreme form of punishment used in the United States outside of the death penalty and causes serious trauma, while being associated with higher recidivism rates and a reduction in public safety “.
According to NYCLU, the Department of Prisons has breached the current solitary confinement rules that stipulate a maximum time of 17 hours a day for a period of less than 15 days.
:strip_exif()/i/2004677808.jpeg?f=meta "“The Missing Piece for Tablets to be a Real Laptop: A Keyboard Deck Accessory”")