The New York Times’ reporting work on Rikers Island is starting to make some government officials squirm. But at the end of the day, emerging punishments and accountability measures seem to fall painfully short of addressing the devolving health and safety situation there.
The Times first covered the rise in assaults on civilian employees working at the facility back in May, and then followed up in July with a brutal portrayal of life for its prisoners.
Now the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has announced that it will fine private prison healthcare provider Corizon Health Services, Inc. $75,000 — “the highest level of censure by the federal Labor Department […] for failing to protect employees from violence at the jail complex.”