In New York Prisons, Guards Who Brutalize Prisoners Rarely Get Fired

Records obtained by The Marshall Project reveal a state discipline system that fails to hold many guards accountable

By Alysia Santo, Joseph Neff and Tom Meagher of The NY Times. Excerpts:

"Shattered teeth. Punctured lungs. Broken bones. Over a dozen years, New York State officials have documented the results of attacks by hundreds of prison guards on the people in their custody."

"when the state corrections department has tried to use this evidence to fire guards, it has failed 90% of the time"

"more than 290 cases in which the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision tried to fire officers or supervisors it said physically abused prisoners or covered up mistreatment that ranged from group beatings to withholding food. The agency considered these employees a threat to the safety and security of prisons.

Yet officers were ousted in just 28 cases. The state tried to fire one guard for using excessive force in three separate incidents within three years — and failed each time."

"An officer who broke his baton hitting a prisoner 35 times, even after the man was handcuffed, was not fired. Neither were the guards who beat a prisoner at Attica Correctional Facility so badly that he needed 13 staples to close gashes in his scalp. Nor were the officers who battered a man with mental illness, injuring him from face to groin. The man hanged himself the next day.

In dozens of documented cases involving severe injuries of prisoners, including three deaths, the agency did not even try to discipline officers"

"For decades, the workings of the prison discipline system had been hidden from public view under a secrecy law adopted at the urging of the state’s powerful law enforcement unions."

"The records probably reflect only a fraction of the violence guards have inflicted in New York’s corrections system, experts said. Many prisoners do not file complaints because they fear retaliation or not being believed."

"the contract the state signed in 1972 with the union. The agreement requires any effort to fire an officer to go through binding arbitration, using an outside arbitrator hired by the union and the state"

"Only a court can overturn arbitration decisions.

In abuse cases, the arbitrators ruled in favor of officers three-quarters of the time"

"verall, the corrections department has tried to oust staff members almost 4,000 times since 2010, for such infractions as chronic tardiness and drug use. It succeeded in just 7% of the cases."

"In 2016, The New York Times reported that state officials vowed to beef up investigations into brutality after an arbitrator reinstated an officer with back pay even though the guard had been caught on video repeatedly punching a prisoner lying on the floor. A jury acquitted the guard of assault, however, and attacks on prisoners continued.

Two years later, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed legislation to give the corrections commissioner the power to dismiss officers, but the plan withered under opposition from the Assembly and Senate."

"A powerful union can undermine safety in prisons by gumming up the disciplinary process, said Steve J. Martin, who has worked as a consultant for corrections facilities across the country and is now the court-ordered monitor for the New York City jails on Rikers Island.

Officers “know they can beat the system more often than not,” Martin said. “That’s how you develop these cultures where you have frequent instances of excessive force.”"

"The Marshall Project identified more than 160 excessive-force lawsuits that the state lost or settled, paying $18.5 million in damages. The corrections department’s records show that officials attempted to discipline an officer in just 20 of those cases."

"The attack that prompted Nick Magalios to file his lawsuit began when officers at Fishkill Correctional Facility, in New York’s Hudson Valley, yelled at him for hugging and kissing his wife hello during a visit, which prison rules allowed.

Afterward, Officer Mathew Peralta, who had reprimanded Magalios, knocked him to the floor and kicked and punched him as another guard held him down and a third officer watched, according to testimony in the civil trial."

"The Marshall Project found only two excessive force lawsuits in which officers had to contribute some of their own money; taxpayers were on the hook for the rest."