The Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, known for its troubled conditions, continues to hold pretrial detainees despite halting intake of sentenced inmates. Photo: John Minchillo/AP
The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn has stopped accepting inmates serving sentences, marking a significant shift in policy following a judge’s recent condemnation of the facility’s conditions.
The Bureau of Prisons confirmed to the New York Daily News that since August, federal defendants entering the prison system will no longer face serving their terms at the Sunset Park jail.
While MDC primarily houses suspects awaiting prosecution, a small percentage of its 1,200 inmates serve their sentences there. These typically include individuals convicted of white-collar crimes with sentences of less than a year.
“Effective since August, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) has temporarily paused all initial designations to the minimum security cadre component of MDC Brooklyn,” BOP spokeswoman Randilee Giamusso stated, as reported by the New York Daily News. As of now, there are 42 individuals serving sentences at the facility.
This policy shift follows an Aug. 5 ruling by Federal Court Judge Gary Brown. The judge threatened to vacate the nine-month sentence of a 75-year-old convicted of a tax scam if he was sent to MDC, citing “dangerous, barbaric conditions” at the jail.
Instead, the defendant will serve his time at a medical facility in Massachusetts. While the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on whether the judge’s decision directly led to the policy change, one law enforcement source told the Daily News that it was an obvious response.
MDC Brooklyn has faced years of criticism for issues such as understaffing, medical mistreatment, violence and poor conditions. Federal judges have frequently reduced sentences for defendants held pretrial at the facility due to the inhumane environment. In his ruling, Judge Brown detailed instances of violence, including two murders and a 37-second stabbing assault that went unchallenged by correction officers until it was nearly over.
“These incidents demonstrate a woeful lack of supervision, a breakdown of order, and an environment of lawlessness that constitute unacceptable, reprehensible and deadly mismanagement,” Brown wrote in court documents.
The Bureau of Prisons’ new policy surfaced publicly during the recent sentencing of Stephen Mead, a former Ticketmaster executive convicted of hacking a competitor’s servers. Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Pravda clarified in court that the prison system’s policy had recently changed, effectively taking MDC Brooklyn off the table for sentenced inmates.
Defense attorney Noam Biale, representing an inmate who did not receive his medication after an emergency appendix procedure, raised concerns about the ongoing situation. “If both judges and the [Bureau of Prisons] recognize it’s not an appropriate place for people to serve their sentences, how can it be appropriate to jail people who are presumed innocent there?” he asked, as reported by the Daily News.
The Bureau of Prisons has not indicated when or if MDC Brooklyn might resume accepting sentenced inmates.
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