Monitor: Violence In City Jails Increased

Violence prevails in city jails, and the slow pace of investigations into incidents as well as the Department of Correction’s “deeply dysfunctional operating systems” is impeding reform efforts, according to the most recent report by an independent Federal monitor.

Despite a reduction in the number of inmates since the monitor, Steve J. Martin, and his team were appointed in 2015, the number of use-of-force incidents has increased about 50 percent, from 400 in January 2016 to 608 in December 2018, the report concluded. More ominously, the report said, the decrease in the jail population means the average rate of use-of-force incidents increased 79 percent since the first six-month monitoring period.