On Friday, the Legal Aid Society kicked off arguments in what may be the most high-stakes decision to hit New York City’s jails in decades: whether control of the jails should be wrested from the city and given to a federal receiver who would have far-reaching powers to make the facilities safer for detainees and staff.
The 106-page filing is the first step in a legal process, with U.S. judge Laura Swain set to make the final decision on whether receivership is the right move and what it would look like.
Here’s a primer on what’s happening.
How did we get here?
Eight years ago, NYC’s jails were put under a federal monitor in a legal agreement after detainees sued the city over high levels of violence and frequent use of force by correction officers against incarcerated people.
Since then, the violence and officers’ use of force has “unimaginably” worsened, and someone outside city government is now needed to reform the jails, said Mary Lynne Werlwas, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Project.
“It is an extraordinary governance failure and a human rights violation in this country that should bring shame to New York City,” she told Gothamist last week.
The federal monitor has filed 50 reports warning of the mounting danger, she said. In his October report, the monitor said a “pervasive, imminent risk of harm” to detainees and staff characterizes NYC’s jails.
What was in the Legal Aid motion?
The motion argues the city has failed to follow court orders to make the jails safer, and includes five affidavits from people recently or currently detained by the city’s Department of Correction whose stories show they were harmed in custody.
One affidavit is signed with a shaky “X” by Carlton James, who held a pen in his mouth to sign from his Bellevue Hospital bed, because he no longer can use his limbs, he stated.
James has been in the hospital since May 11, when he says city correction officers bound his hands and feet and tackled him,…
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