Advocacy groups, nonprofits push for release of correction officers disciplinary records

About 100 advocacy organizations, nonprofits and others are calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to publish the disciplinary records of correction officers, Politico reports. 

The push to release the records follows the state legislature’s repeal of a law known as 50-a earlier in the summer, which brought greater transparency to law enforcement disciplinary records. The New York Civil Liberties Union created a new database last week as a result, displaying hundreds of thousands of complaints against New York City Police Department officers. Advocates are now pushing the city and state to create a similar public database of the records of correction officers. 

“The impunity for this culture of violence in our prisons rests on secrecy,” the letter to the governor reads. “Accountability starts with public access to the information about the injustices.” Groups signing on to the letter include the Center for Community Alternatives, The Legal Aid Society, and the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign.

Rikers Island has been particularly scrutinized throughout the years for the mistreatment of detainees. The city Department of Correction disciplined 17 officers in June over their involvement in the death of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, who died in solitary confinement on Rikers.