Rikers Women’s Kingdom Prison Transfer Fears Realized; ‘no Person Goes To Pay Attention You’ Guards Allegedly Menaced A Few Who Complained, Says Lawyer

Female detainees at Rikers Island raised caution flags over plans to transport them to a kingdom prison in Westchester County — and a Legal Aid attorney says their fears approximately the circulate have been realized.

Several of the 85 girls now housed on the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, forty four miles north of the metropolis, say they’ve been threatened by means of jail team of workers — and one says she was grabbed with the aid of the neck and punched numerous instances by using a correction officer in one incident, said Legal Aid legal professional Jane-Roberte Sampeur.

Entrance to Rikers Island Prison on 19th Ave. in Queens. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

“Several women have reported being threatened by way of correction officials who are telling them such things as, ‘You are in nation custody now. No one is going to pay attention you,’” Sampeur said. “This best confirms our clients’ worst fears.”

The girl who claims she was assaulted become installed a solitary housing unit where she had no touch along with her spouse and children or lawyer and now fears retaliation, stated Sampeur, who's with the society’s Women’s Pre-Trial Release Initiative and testified Monday at a City Council hearing.

In any other instance, a correction officer instructed detainees at some point of an orientation “If [they] assume they are in Rikers, they have every other aspect coming.” He also advised transferees they might be picked up, dropped on their heads and beaten with out him having to do it by means of himself, Sampeur advised the Daily News on Wednesday.

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County. (Google Maps)

“He stated he could direct inmates with long sentences to do it,” Sampeur said. “The equal CO informed them they could be crushed, positioned in a solitary housing unit, overwhelmed once more and left naked till he felt like releasing them.”

Before the pass, 125 woman detainees at the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island signed a petition opposing the flow.

Sampeur stated the concerns exhibit that the mass pass became a colossal mistake.

“This complete technique has been haphazardly and poorly planned,” she said.

Typically, ladies on Rikers obtained a ways fewer visits than men, so the transfers have even in addition remoted them from loved ones, she stated. In addition, the nation software installation to permit them to look their loved ones has been balky and unreliable, Sampeur said. The legal professional said the detainees are transferred with little notice and on occasion given only some minutes to percent their matters. Some are lacking courtroom appearances, and their right to talk with their lawyers — a mission even on Rikers — has been upended, Sampeur stated.

“Several customers have been transferred inside the center of assessment for (supervised release), delaying their launch from prison,” she said. “(We have) diminishing conversation with clients.”

City Councilman Keith Powers, chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, said it’s time to reverse the move.

“Ultimately, this is any other reason why we must begin looking at bringing ladies back to New York City in which they may be towards their households and felony services while also being within the custody of people who are higher educated to deal with their wishes,” he stated.

“The whole motive of last Rikers became to maintain people closer to own family and legal services and here we’re sending them similarly away.”

Sharon White-Harrigan, govt director of the Women’s Community Justice Association, known as the state of affairs unacceptable.

“Gov. Hochul stated this circulate turned into brief, and we count on motion on getting humans again in their communities,” said White-Harrigan, who leads the campaign to permanently near the Singer center.

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“Every single character in kingdom and city authorities should be running right now to close Rose M. Singer and stable a trauma-responsive center in New York City for the small populace of incarcerated ladies and gender-expansive humans.”

Patrick Gallahue, a city Department of Correction spokesman, stated an earlier set of allegations by means of the girl who claimed she were assaulted had been observed untrue.

“These are a brand new set of allegations that stay investigated and feature now not but been substantiated,” he said. “We will retain to guide the girls transferred to Bedford Hills for so long as they're there and paintings to deal with any of their concerns.”

City Correction officials dispute that every person has no longer been produced for court docket hearings. There have been some troubles with telephones at Bedford, but they had been fixed, the officers say.

A spokeswoman for the kingdom prisons stated there was “no incredible change” in suggested use of force incidents at Bedford Hills. “The Department has 0 tolerance for violence inside our facilities and all people engaged in misconduct will be disciplined. If warranted, an incident might be referred for out of doors prosecution,” the spokeswoman stated.