Mentally ill inmates suffer overwhelmingly from pervasive brutality at America's second biggest jail, where guards routinely beat prisoners, The New York Times reports.
After a four-month investigation, the paper said 129 prisoners suffered "serious injuries" in altercations with guards over an 11-month period at New York's Rikers Island last year.
The injuries required medical treatment outside the jail and included fractures, wounds requiring stitches and head injuries.
Furthermore, officers used force on inmates 1927 times in the first six months of 2014, a surge of more than a third compared with the same period last year, the newspaper said on Monday.
"The report helps lay bare the culture of brutality on the island, and makes clear that it is inmates with mental illnesses who absorb the overwhelming brunt of the violence," it said.
Violence committed by guards against inmates is "pervasive and routine", the newspaper wrote.
In 77 per cent of the 129 cases, inmates had been diagnosed with mentally illness, and in 80 per cent of the 129 cases, inmates reported being beaten after they were handcuffed.
"The growing numbers of mentally unstable inmates, with issues like depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are a major factor in the violence," said the newspaper.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office in January, promised to take immediate action when questioned about the report, saying his team had a "very aggressive plan for change".
"We work from the assumption that the current state of affairs is unacceptable, and we're going to be taking very serious and quick actions to change it," he told reporters.
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