New York City has agreed to shell out more than $53 million to suspects held in harsh conditions — including being confined to tight spaces and deprived of sunlight — at jails on Rikers Island and in Manhattan ahead of their trials.
The proposed agreement, which will have to be signed off on by a federal judge to be finalized, would settle a class-action lawsuit that covers more than 4,000 people held in city lockups from March 2018 to June 2022.
Under the terms, the city will agree to pay $400 for each day the detainees were housed at “covered facilities,” including two facilities on Rikers and a housing area in the Manhattan Detention Complex, a downtown jail commonly referred to as the Tombs.
Inmates who were determined to have a serious mental illness or who were under the age of 22 while detained in the conditions will be awarded an additional $50 per day, according to the proposed settlement filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.
“People confined in the Covered Facilities were denied sufficient access to programming, recreation, a dayroom, natural light, freedom of movement, and psychological monitoring, among other deprivations,” the proposed settlement states.
“At times, the conditions approached those experienced in solitary confinement,” it adds.
The city will pay out a $53 million settlement to Rikers Island and Manhattan Detention Complex inmates who claimed in a class-action lawsuit that they were held in harsh conditions. J.C.Rice for NY Post
The inside of a temporary holding cell at Rikers Island in 2021.
Plaintiff attorney Eric Hecker said the settlement would be a step forward, but does not undo the harm caused.
“No human being should be subjected to such highly isolated confinement, and certainly not without a hearing to challenge that placement,” Hecker said in a statement after the proposed deal was filed.
“The compensation from the settlement cannot undo the substantial psychological harm these conditions have caused, but we hope it will provide some relief to the class,” he added.
Detainees will be paid $400 for every day they were held in “covered facilities.” Gregory P. Mango for NY PostA spokesperson for the city Law Department, Nicholas Paolucci, said that safety at Rikers was a top priority and that the decision to place detainees in such spaces was made over such concerns.
Yet, the agreement was in the best interest of everyone involved in the suit, he added.
“The safety of all individuals on Rikers is among the city’s highest priorities,” Paolucci said in a statement. “While the housing assignments at issue reflected these safety concerns, the practices that led to this litigation have been modified. This settlement is in the best interests of all parties.”
The settlement is the second multi-million dollar agreement the city has reached in recent weeks with plaintiffs in class action lawsuits.
In March, the city agreed to pay a total of more than $6 million to some 300 protesters who were confined and some beaten or pepper-sprayed by NYPD officers in The Bronx during the George Floyd demonstrations in June 2020.
That settlement represented the highest per-person amount awarded to individuals in a mass-arrest class-action lawsuit in city history, according to a statement from plaintiff attorneys Ali Frick and Doug Lieb.
