Watchdog report released on Wednesday claimed that New York City has already shelled off over $13 million in fiscal year 2015. This stir is an effort to settle a rising personal injury claims from its jails, particularly the Rikers Island complex.
According to Reuters, New York City's comptroller, Scott Stringer claimed that the collected data by his office proved that more than 2,800 of the same claims were filed between July 2014 and June 2015. It is said to be a 27 percent boost from the previous year and a 172 percent raise since 2009.
It was also said that those reports were either filed by the prisoners themselves. Some were also filed by the employees at the correctional facilities, even though the exact numbers were not immediately disclosed.
"We have a humanitarian crisis on our hands at Rikers that is hurting both inmates and corrections officers, and we have an obligation as a city to confront suffering and violence in our jails," Stringer said in a statement. And among the many prisons, the Rikers Island is considered as one of the largest jail complexes in the United States. Rikers Island even comprises 10,000 inmates in 10 separate facilities.
However, the New York Daily News noted that Anna M. Kross Center is the facility where most complaints were filed against the city. This is still situated in Rikers and it is composed of mentally-challenged and drug-addicted inmates. Most of the complaints stemmed from incidents at the Kross Center. Stinger stated that the claims totalled around 593.
The boost in the legal actions taken against the correction comes during the time when violence in Rickers was very evident through a federal monitor. It had also drawn increased enquiry in the past years after accusations of constant violence and poor supervision by the correctional staffs. A lot of jail guards also faced the state and federal charges for assaulting or smuggling contraband.
The issue, moreover, caught the attention of the U.S. lawyer in Manhattan, Preet Bharara. The attorney also joined a class lawsuit against the city filed by Rikers detainees, which mostly claimed of abuse, as reported by Yahoo! News.
Meanwhile, the city and the Justice Department are doing their part in settling the court case to several reforms, including the installation of a federal monitor. But Stringer insisted that the preliminary data indicates the number of claims has still continued to rise in the current year despite all the efforts made.
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