Inmates to Get $150 and Up if Denied a Bed

Jailed crime suspects who don’t get beds within 24 hours must be paid $150, and $100 every 12 hours after that until beds are provided, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Prisoners in the city’s overcrowded jails are subjected to “days on end in holding pens without beds or proper bathroom facilities, to real and substantial harm,” U.S. District Judge Morris Lasker wrote in his opinion. “It is therefore appropriate that inmates detained in violation of the order be compensated.”

Corrections officials were confident that the ruling would not prove expensive.

“We won’t be incurring costs as long as we’re in compliance, and we intend to be in compliance,” Corrections Department spokesman Vito Turso said. “That is the answer to this problem.”

Lasker has issued rulings on overcrowded jails for 15 years, but this was the first time he ordered the city to pay prisoners for bad conditions.

“The imposition of these sanctions is done in the hope that such sums will never have to be paid because the department will be in compliance,” Lasker said.

City jails were filled to 103% capacity this week with 20,794 prisoners. All but one inmate got a bed within 24 hours, Turso said.

Turso said if the plan was in effect the first two weeks of November, 250 inmates could have collected. An average of 1,300 new inmates enter city jails each day.