New York City has agreed to pay $12.5 million dollars to settle a class action lawsuit by people who were subject to invasive strip searches while visiting loved ones in jail. It’s the first time the city will pay damages to visitors—not prisoners.
For years, scores of women called 311 to complain they were being invasively searched while visiting jails in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and on Rikers Island.
In the most serious cases, women said female guards penetrated them or forced them to drop their pants and show their sanitary napkins. NAACP Legal Defense Fund Attorney Raymond Audain represents the class and said one of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit endured a horrific experience.
“She was required to pull down her pants and all of this was done in front of her five-year-old daughter,” Audain said. “And what I thought made it especially troubling was that the guard told her that this was proper procedure.”
Audain said each person is entitled to up to $4,000 in damages. Under certain circumstances, those who were found with contraband will only be entitled to $500. The city has also agreed to retrain all correction officers by May of 2020, and if they have prior complaints and other issues, they may be found unfit to work the visitor area. Individual correction officers are named in the lawsuit but Audain said he did not know whether they would be disciplined or not.
A subway poster that recruits for the class action settlement.
As part of the settlement’s agreement, New York City does not admit fault or liability. Earlier this year, The Department of Investigation, which had made recommendations about stopping invasive search practices at city jails in 2016, released a report saying that the Department of Correction had not properly trained or incorporated all the DOI's recommendations.
At least one other attorney, representing women in separate lawsuits, said that his clients would opt out of the settlement and proceed with their own individual lawsuits.
“Their damages far exceed $4,000, and they have suffered greatly as a result of what has been done,” said lawyer Alan Figman.
Invasive strip searches that violate protocol have plagued the city for decades. In 2010, the city paid $33 million to a class of roughly 100,000 people who were strip-searched after being charged with misdemeanors. Prior to that, there was a $40 million settlement that involved people being strip-searched while waiting to be arraigned. But these lawsuits involved people being charged with a crime, not visitors to a jail.
Visitors who experienced an invasive search going back to 2012 and who want to take part in the settlement must sign up to be a part of the settlement by April 27th of next year. The city is running ads on buses and in newspapers to notify the public and there is a website to file a claim.
“This has happened to a fair number of folks but we need to make sure that they learn about the settlement and that they come forward and identify themselves,” said Audain.
A judge must still approve the settlement. A final court hearing is scheduled for February 2020.
Cindy Rodriguez is an investigative reporter for New York Public Radio. You can follow her on Twitter at @cynrod.
This article has been updated to clarify that visitors found with contraband may, under certain circumstances, only be entitled to $500.
