Davon Washington thought he was going to die last year while handcuffed and shackled inside a small, dark cell in Albany, N.Y. New York City officials transferred Washington from the city’s Rikers Island jail to Albany after he was accused of attacking a guard. Soon after he arrived, guards there beat him, he said. He was sentenced to serve 360 days in solitary isolation. Washington was one of four young detainees who sued the city last year, charging that city correction officials sent them Albany knowing they would be beaten and thrown into solitary confinement for months. They said the transfers were intended to circumvent the city’s ban on using isolation as a punishment for youths.
On Friday, the four men reached a $980,000 settlement with the city, the New York Times reports. As part of the deal, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration reversed its policy and agreed to stop transferring young inmates to the Albany County jail. Four years ago, the city banned solitary confinement for inmates 21 and younger, a policy change that solidified de Blasio’s image as a progressive leader in criminal-justice reform. The ban came amid public outrage over the suicide of Kalief Browder, who spent three years at Rikers Island, much of it in solitary confinement, before charges against him were dropped. As the mayor boasted of the change, correction officials quietly stepped up a practice of sending young inmates who they believed posed a security or safety risk to jails outside the city, where they could be kept in isolation for months. Under the settlement, the city will not send inmates to Albany, but it will continue transferring inmates to other counties if they are vulnerable to attack or present a high risk to other inmates or to guards. Ten detainees are being housed in jails outside the city.