More than half of all sexual abuse lawsuits filed in New York City under the Adult Survivors Act were focused on Rikers Island, with guards alleged to have assaulted inmates, an alarming new report released Tuesday showed.
Reporters at the news outlet Gothamist analyzed lawsuits and notices of claims filed in court under the Adult Survivors Act, a state law that opened a one-year window for sexual assault survivors to file claims outside of the statute of limitations, which closed in November 2023.
Results of the research shows that a staggering 60% of all 1,256 lawsuits filed in New York City under the act centered around Rikers Island, home to the city’s largest jail.
According to the analysis, which took several months to compile, more than 700 victims — almost all of them women inmates — say jail employees sexually assaulted them by committing a variety of vicious acts that resulted in widespread institutional abuse. Officers are accused of forcibly kissing inmates, ordering them to perform oral sex and submit to abusive cavity searchers, and committing violent rape.
Seven women even allege officers impregnated them, according to the report, with at least three claiming they received abortions while in jail. Others said they gave birth to the officer’s babies.
The women involved in the lawsuits are suing the NYC Department of Corrections (DOC) and the City of New York, claiming the city failed to protect them, and seeking a total of more than $14.7 billion.
‘Remarkable’ number of women coming forward
The claims of abuse at Rikers go back 50 years, with a sharp spike in allegations in the 1990s and early 2000s. Female inmates are incarcerated at the Rose M. Singer Center, the only facility at Rikers Island that houses women. Female inmates have historically represented a small percentage of the city’s jail population.
And the vast majority of the allegations have been brought by this small population who say they were sexually abused at Rikers, according to Christopher Werth, investigations editor at Gothamist.
“If you look at the overall population of Rikers, women make up a very small proportion of the number of people who are being detained at Rikers at any given time,” Werth said. “So you’re talking about a smaller subset of a subset of a subset, in a sense. To see these kinds of numbers of women who are coming forward from this rather small population on the island is pretty remarkable.”
Jeny is a former Rikers inmate jailed for a felony conviction of driving while impaired. She explained in the Gothamist article how she and other women were forced to perform oral sex and always complied out of fear of retribution.
“I just cooperated with what I needed to do,” she said. “When something is happening and you don’t have any control of the situation, the more you fight back, the worse it can become for you.”
A NYC Department of Investigation report, released in 2018 that looked into the DOC’s hiring practices, showed that the department allowed recruits with “significant background issues” to be hired.
Benny Boscio, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, the union that represents city jail guards, provided amNewYork Metro with a statement that spoke to the allegations as well as alleged assaults against guards.
“Simply because the Adult Survivors Act makes it possible to file civil litigation based on new allegations of incidents that allegedly go back years, if not decades, that doesn’t mean those allegations have any merit and ultimately a court will make that decision,” Boscio said. “That being said, since 2021, there have been over 60 confirmed cases of inmates sexually assaulting New York City Correction Officers in our jails, and the fact that many lawmakers refuse to make these crimes a felony, demonstrates the brazen hypocrisy our members are forced to endure. Our officers are tried and convicted in the court of public opinion in the absence of any facts, while at the same time, the law fails to protect our officers even when they are proven to be victims of violent crimes.”
More Rikers Island scandals
Rikers Island has made several infamous headlines in recent months. Just 19 days into 2024, two people died in custody at the jail.
The Daily News also reported in October that the correction’s department built a “secret lounge” and supply stash on the island.
New York City is set to close the controversial jail by 2027, but a complete plan on how to lock up alleged criminals afterward is not clear right now. Mayor Eric Adams, however, recently said new construction projects will create wards inside city hospitals to care for inmates who have terminal illnesses or require serious medical treatment.
