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Lawsuits Suggest Pattern of Rikers Guards Looking Other Way

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Lawsuits Suggest Pattern of Rikers Guards Looking Other Way By BENJAMIN WEISER Published: February 3, 2009 When two guards were accused last month of encouraging inmates in one Rikers Island jail to police themselves, leading to beatings and in one case the killing of an inmate, correction officials called the situation ?an aberration? and said they had not seen such a case in other units involving other guards. But New York City has been sued in recent years by more than a half-dozen Rikers inmates claiming to have been the victims of beatings by prisoners while guards looked the other way, or worse, ordered the attacks. The city settled one case for $500,000, and another for just under $100,000. A new lawsuit was filed Tuesday. And last year, Bronx prosecutors charged that a Rikers guard ordered six inmates to beat two prisoners; one victim was hospitalized with a collapsed lung...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).