(Reuters) - The New York City Department of Correction has routinely violated the constitutional rights of male teenagers at the Rikers Island jail complex through a "culture of violence" that relies on beatings, the federal government said in a report released on Monday.
The U.S. Justice Department said the multiyear probe had found a pattern of "conduct and practice" pervading the sprawling Rikers detention facility that violates the rights of young inmates.
For adolescents, Rikers is a "broken institution," said Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District.
"It is a place where brute force is the first impulse rather than the last resort; where verbal insults are repaid with physical injuries; where beatings are routine while accountability is rare; and where a culture of violence endures even while a code of silence prevails," Bharara said in a joint statement with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
There was no immediate comment from the city's Department of Correction or from Mayor Bill de Blasio, to whom the report was addressed.
