New York City has paid more than $500 million in police misconduct settlements over the past six years, including nearly $115 million in 2023, according to an analysis of city data released by the Legal Aid Society on Thursday.
Fewer lawsuits are being settled each year, the society found, but the median payout has more than doubled over that period, rising from $10,500 on average in 2018 to $25,000 last year.
A growing number of such settlements in recent years have resulted from lawsuits filed by people after their criminal convictions were vacated by the courts.
Many of those convictions dated to the 1990s, when soaring crime rates led New York City law enforcement agencies to pursue arrests at all costs.
A city Law Department spokesman said on Wednesday that there had been an increase in convictions being reversed and that settling the suits arising from those reversals avoided protracted litigation and provided justice to people who had been wrongfully convicted.
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