Rikers Island Sex Scandal: Guards Allowed To Rape Inmates With City Consent, Lawsuit Claims

The Rikers Island prison in New York is now the target of a ground-shaking new lawsuit that alleges up to eight prison guards were allowed to rape female inmates with the blessing of city officials.

Two women at the Rose M. Singer Center portion of the prison claim that they were raped repeatedly by the same guard, whom they name as Benny Santiago, CNN reports.

One of the victims, who was named as “Jane Doe 2,” alleged that she told a mental health clinician and a doctor with the City Department of Investigation about the rapes, but they said nothing could be done.

“This abuse is only possible because, in the face of repeated warnings, the City of New York has enabled a culture of complacency to perpetuate at Rikers Island and thereby consented to the abuse of women in its custody,” the lawsuit states.

The court papers also claim that Santiago encouraged other inmates to jeer at and threaten one of the two victims when he found out she’d been complaining about the alleged crimes.

While the Department of Corrections would not comment on specific pending legal matters, it did tell the news site that “DOC has a zero-tolerance policy with regard to sexual abuse and assault, and there is no place at DOC for the mistreatment of any inmate.”

The Legal Aid Society (LAS) — representatives of the two women — is looking for damages from Santiago and for policy changes that it says encourages “a culture of systemic rape.”

“Sexual violence is at record proportions in DOC, and rape and other sexual abuse of women are endemic at the Rose M. Singer Center,” the LAS said in a statement.

CNN notes that Rikers Island has come under fire in the past for hiring prison guards without properly checking into their backgrounds, resulting in some who were employed in spite of having “multiple prior arrests and convictions, prior associations with gang members, or relationships with inmates” on their records.

According to a separate report from the Free Thought Project, the complaint charges Santiago with abusing the women “in unrestricted areas that were not monitored by security cameras and [with waiting] until after center captains had made their supervisory rounds, which were made at the same time every day.”

If the abuses described at Rikers Island are substantiated, what actions do you think city officials should take? Sound off in the comments section below.

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