By Claire Glass
On October 21, 2015 Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York signed into law the consent decree sought in Mark Nunez v. City of New York, a 2011 class action brought on behalf of a class of incarcerated individuals who were victims of unnecessary use of force by correction officers at Rikers Island. Nunez’s complaint included over twenty pages detailing instances of abuse resulting in facial fractures, off camera beatings of handcuffed individuals, lacerations, head injuries, and lost teeth.
The newly signed consent decree mandates installation of additional surveillance cameras to cover the myriad blind spots that allow for off the radar misconduct, harsher disciplinary measures for correction officers, more stringent injury and incident reporting requirements, and development of an entirely new use of force policy. Pursuant to the order, correction officers will have to use handheld cameras where surveillance cameras are prohibited for privacy, during cell searches, for example, or impossible to install due to building design.
The decree also ushers independent federal monitor, Steve Martin, into action to oversee implementation of the settlement’s terms. Martin and his staff will take the city to task should it fail to take required action.
Jonathan Chasan, longtime Prisoners Rights Project attorney at the Legal Aid Society[1] and one of the primary architects of the settlement, says he’s optimistic about the deal. The consent decree is a meaty document, more so than settlements reached with the Department of Correction in the past.
“This is a profoundly detailed court order,” Chasan said. “There were a few provisions that the City was reluctant to agree to, but they were not major. It provides remedial measures to address inappropriate use of force and, in many ways, is more detailed than the previous orders we’ve agreed to.”
Nunez is not just distinct for its breadth, however; this time around, the Legal Aid Society had the Department of Justice on its side. In August of last year, the DOJ released a scathing report of violence against adolescent inmates at Rikers and asked the courts to consolidate its suit against the City with Nunez shortly thereafter. The report discussed the “culture of violence” in the jails that allows for the brazenly abusive practices to continue without real consequences for staff.
With the might of the DOJ behind the class, a number of Chasan’s priorities show up in the final product, including Steve Martin’s role in carrying out the plan.
“Martin was the expert in [Sheppard v. Phoenix]. He has extensive experience testifying as an expert and providing monitoring services since the 1980s,” Chasan said. “I also proposed a schedule of which jails should get their cameras first.”
Chasan has worked on a number of successful lawsuits that have resulted in reform-oriented settlements. Chasan settled Jackson v. Montemango, addressing brutality in the Brooklyn House of Detention in 1985. In 1998, the City settled with Legal Aid on behalf of a class of plaintiffs who were brutalized in the Central Punitive Segregation Units (CPSU) in Rikers Island jails. The 1998 decision in Sheppard v. Phoenix compelled the DOC to install additional cameras and implement more rigorous injury reporting requirements. And again, Chasan’s team reached private settlement with the City in 2006 in Ingles v. Toro, addressing violence against incarcerated individuals held on bail.
Despite these settlements, abuse and the excessive use violence appear to have returned in full force. According to a New York Times report of Department of Correction statistics, guards used violence against incarcerated individuals more in 2014 than in one year in the preceding decade, despite the jail population’s substantial decline.
Chasan asserts that more drastic personnel remedies may be the answer. He points to the promotion of DOC staff who were named as defendants in prior brutality lawsuits as a major source of the resurgence of violence. Now as wardens wielding more power to set the tone, those former defendants have codified brutality in the jails. Chasan said that the culture of violence is becoming increasingly more difficult to reverse, short of a complete overhaul of the staff from the top down.
[1] Jonathan Chasan is also my externship supervisor
Photo Credit: Rikers Island of Queens, New York by Sfoskett is licensed under GFDL 1.2
Links in this article
http://www.justice.gov/file/188656/download
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/05/nyregion/05rikers-report.html?_r=0
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-sdny/legacy/2015/03/25/SDNY%20Rikers%20Report.pdf
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/lawsuit-end-abuse-rikers
http://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/PC-NY-0044-0001.pdf