Report: Guards at Rikers Savagely Beat Teenage Inmates Without Consequences

While solitary confinement in prison is viewed as painstaking and—for some—unethical, teenage inmates at Rikers Island woud voluntarily place themselves in

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Complex Original

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While solitary confinement in prison is viewed as one of the harshest punishments someone can endure, teenage inmates at Rikers Island would voluntarily place themselves in there to escape a more pressing danger: guards.

A 79-page report by the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney of Manhattan, into the New York City Department of Correction found that guards at Rikers savagely beat teenage inmates and intimidated them into remaining silent about the abuse. This wasn't just inmates getting 'roughed up': some of the abuse detailed in the report describes inmates having their arms crushed in between doors; inmates being beaten with radios, batons and broomsticks and having their heads slammed against walls; or having pepper spray shot into their eyes at only an inch away. 

From the report:

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“For adolescent inmates, Rikers Island is broken,” Preet Bharara said during a press conference. “It is a place where brute force is the first impulse rather than the last resort, a place where verbal insults are repaid with physical injuries, where beatings are routine, while accountability is rare.”

Guards kept the records and reports of the abuse among themselves. They'd pressure civilian staff members, doctors and teachers into not reporting abuse with threats of retaliation if they did. A teacher in the report said that when abuse happens, it's better that they "turn their head away, so that they don’t witness anything."

Abuse was violent enough that some guards injured themselves from delivering forceful blows:

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The report found that guards went as far as taking inmates out of the view of cameras when they beat them. Bharara said Rikers looked to be more "inspired by ‘Lord of the Flies’ than any legitimate philosophy of humane detention."

Read the full report here.

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