A New York City agency responsible for protecting the rights of incarcerated people took steps to reassert its authority on Wednesday, suing the Department of Correction and the city over a lack of transparency as the majority of its members called for an outside authority to take control of the jails.
The agency, the Board of Correction, filed its suit in Bronx State Supreme Court, seeking to wrest back unfettered access to surveillance video from the jails.
The jails commissioner, Louis A. Molina, stopped the board from accessing the footage, which allows it to monitor jail conditions at any given moment, earlier this year.
“We’ve been forced to take the unprecedented step of entering into litigation against the city in order to ensure that we, and our staff, have access to the tools we need to do our jobs,” said one of the board members, Rachael Bedard, in a statement.
A spokesman for the Department of Correction did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Persons:
Louis A, Molina, “ We’ve, ”, Rachael Bedard
Organizations:
of Correction, Bronx, Supreme Court, Department of Correction
Locations:
York City