NYCLU Urges Veto of Bill Protecting Rikers Guards Who Brutalize Inmates

The New York Civil Liberties Union today sent a letter urging Governor Cuomo to veto a bill drafted by the correction officers union that seeks to protect guards from prosecution for acts of brutality against inmates at Rikers Island facilities. The bill would give the Queens District Attorney exclusive jurisdiction in such cases.

“Brutality at the hands of Rikers prison guards is out of control,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “And yet the correction officers’ union is seeking to give its members a free pass by sending cases against them to the office considered least likely to prosecute. We need more accountability at Rikers, not less, and a wholesale reform of the culture that allows abuse of prisoners to perpetuate.”

The bill is on its way to the governor’s desk just as U.S. Attorney Preet Bahara released a report on the deep-seated culture of violence against young prisoners at Rikers Island. The report blamed this brutality on a failure to hold guards accountable for using excessive and unnecessary force. Teenagers were reportedly beaten with radios, batons and broomsticks, and left in solitary confinement for months at a time.

Norman Seabrook, head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, made no secret that the bill is intended to protect guards at Rikers from rigorous criminal prosecution. In commenting on the bill, he said, “We believe we will be treated a little bit differently in Queens… [Bronx District Attorney Robert] Johnson doesn’t give the correction officers the benefit of the doubt. ”

The Bronx District Attorney has had the power to prosecute crimes arising from Rikers Island since Bronx County was established a century ago. If Cuomo were to sign this bill – which passed through the State Assembly and Senate at the end of the last legislative session – it would be the first and only instance of the state government overriding the authority of county officials to prosecute crimes that take place within the county’s boundaries.

“Rikers Island is in the Bronx, and the Bronx District Attorney has the ability to prosecute crimes that take place within the county’s boundaries,” Lieberman said. “The guards’ union can’t pick and choose which district attorney it thinks will be least likely to hold guards accountable for brutalizing inmates.”