The treatment of prisoners at New York City’s infamous Rikers Island — where 15 inmates died in custody last year alone — has been discussed and debated at great lengths. The jail is slated to be closed by 2026, at which time its inmates will be sent to other facilities throughout the city.
Rikers is indeed terrible, as anyone who has been there to visit a client, a friend or a loved one can woefully attest. But there is a place that may be even worse right here in New York, and no one is doing anything about it.
Almost two-and-a-half years ago, in August of 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), a building right near City Hall in lower Manhattan, run by the United States Bureau of Prisons. Epstein, the infamous financier who was arrested for sex trafficking a month earlier, was left alone in his cell there, despite a requirement to check on him every 30 minutes following a suicide watch. He was discovered unresponsive early one Saturday morning and later pronounced dead.
While Epstein’s case received much notoriety because of his wealth and his circle of friends, other less glamorous cases merit not only our collective attention but our focus and determination to fix what happens at the MCC and other federal detention centers around the country.
One of those cases involves Roberto Grant, a 35-year-old father of twin 4-year-old girls, who had been arrested for robbery. He was killed at the MCC in a holding cell with 20 other prisoners in May 2015 while awaiting sentencing. I represent his estate in a civil action against the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
After his death, Grant’s family was told he died from a drug overdose. The NYC Medical Examiner’s office never found any drugs in his system but discovered what was considered “blunt force trauma” and “neck compressions,” consistent with someone who was beaten and strangled to death. This happened under the supposed-watchful eye of federal correctional officers, who should have been regularly patrolling the facility, checking in on the safety and general welfare of the prisoners.
The financial settlement in Grant’s case — which would provide some much-needed relief to his former wife, who is left to raise his two young children — is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams. Whatever Abrams decides, though, will never bring back Roberto Grant. It will never make it acceptable for men and women awaiting their constitutionally-prescribed trials by juries of their peers or sentencing to face certain, yet very avoidable death.
What the case should compel, regardless of the outcome, however, is action at the federal level to fix the Bureau of Prisons, which operates under the Department of Justice and falls under the discretion of Congress to dictate how it is run. There are concrete steps Congress can take right now to alleviate the situation.
First, hire more officers. The Bureau of Prisons is responsible for 153,316 inmates and employs slightly more than 36,000 staff members (not all of whom are uniformed officers in charge of prisoner safety). While there are BOP facilities around the country with a nearly 20:1 ratio of inmates to officers, the MCC has a 6:3 ratio. Congress could easily allocate money in the next federal budget to recruit, hire and train dozens more correctional officers to spread out to understaffed facilities around the country to give the current members of the department more coverage and some much-needed rest.
Second, improve hiring practices. When new officers are hired, there should be more extensive investigations not only into their criminal backgrounds but a full psychological evaluation to boot. Working in a prison is hard, grueling work, and would certainly take a toll on anyone. Finding the right people to work in tough situations is important for the safety of all involved.
Third, increase surveillance. Most BOP facilities are antiquated and without enough infrastructure to support cameras, motion detectors and other preventative measures. Congress and the bureau should invest in technology that would help it monitor the housing areas which are out of sight and prone to violence and mayhem.
What happened to Roberto Grant is a travesty of justice and an enduring tragedy for his friends and family, especially his mother, ex-wife and two daughters. But if what happened to him is allowed to continue, to take any more lives without due process of law, then that would make his senseless death even more tragic. Congress can fix the system before another life is taken.
Laufer is the founding principal of the Laufer Law Group, which has helped thousands of victims of police brutality, prison abuse and negligence.
